Ne Me Quitte Pas
by MadTheLine
Summary: Beau's a normal guy. Mostly. Forks is a normal town. Mostly. The only weird thing about both of them? Edward Cullen. Simple Question: What if Bella was a hella gay boy? This started as a prompt that got out of hand. And now it's a multi-chapter Twilight rewrite, with slash, Male!Bella and two authors who don't even know.
1. Sous le ciel de Paris

Forks, Washington.

It was not like he expected to be. He remembered it vaguely from the years he lived in Forks as a kid-twiggy and small and perpetually scowling. And the summers after the divorce had always been muggy and hot and way too sticky. Now it was just cold, the water like ice on his skin. But it was still bright green. The lawns, the trees, the moss, the plants and the fat leaves, they were all bright green.

His dad was driving the car, an old police cruiser that had seen its glory days back in the 80s. The seats were still soft though, and Beau smiled, nostalgic. When he was a kid, Forks had always seemed so much bigger. Like, it had been his entire world. Now, it was just like revisiting a memory long gone.

He slipped out of the car when they pulled up in front of the house, shouldering his bag and blinking as the rain misted his glasses. His dad—a well aged man in his forties with thinning curls—knuckled his shoulder awkwardly.

Charlie was a cool dad, even if he was a bit distant. That wasn't his fault—if anything, Beau should've tried harder to stay in touch, but he'd only been eleven when Charlie and his mother had divorced. In typical pre-teenage fashion, he'd latched onto resentment like it was going out of style and refused to talk to either of his parents for a good two months. By that time, it was decided he would go live with his mom, a thousand miles away in Phoenix, Arizona.

It'd seemed like Charlie hadn't fought as hard as he could've to keep him, and in his eleven year old mind and as a kid, he'd been pretty pissed off about that. Before he knew it, he'd pushed his father away, and hadn't known how to fix it. He let things lay like that for God knows how long. It might've continued, if his mother hadn't remarried a cool dude who played for a minor league baseball team a couple months after he turned sixteen.

He'd been such a brat when he was a kid. Beau had admitted that to himself a lot and he did want to repair his relationship with his dad. This was a good first step.

Presently, Beau glanced at the bulky orange-red Chevy parked in the drive way of the old house and looked at his father quizzically.

"You like it?" Charlie Swan asked, tentative. "Had Billy Black's boy fix it up just for you. I know it's a little bulky—"

Beau's eyes went huge. "Wait—seriously? It's mine?" He ran over and crushed his dad into a bear hug-or what would've been a bear hug if he had any muscle mass (he'd tried. Nothing worked). "Dad, that's amazing! I love it, it's perfect!"

Charlie swallowed and returned the hug, which was the first in a long time, Beau remembered. "Glad you like it so much. I just wanted to make you feel a bit more at home."

"It's great," Beau said firmly, pulling back and readjusting his glasses with his pinky finger. "Can't wait to drive it to school." He walked over to the machine and traced a slim finger across the hood. The paint was new, even if the model wasn't. He'd never been any good with cars, anyway. He knew how to drive one, that was the point. He'd always been more of a video game fanatic than a car enthusiast, to be honest.

Walking through the house was like walking through a museum someone had stubbornly kept the same for half a decade. The pictures were all the same on the mantle in the living room, if a bit dusty. The furniture was faded and the same yellow paint adorned the cabinets that his mother had loved. A well of guilt stemmed in his stomach as Beau looked around and realized that Charlie had done everything in his power to keep it as it had been five years ago—as if it was a shrine to the life he had shared with his wife and his son.

"What do you want for dinner?" he blurted before he could say something stupidly sentimental like "Missed you so much" or "I wish I could've visited more often". That would've sounded too much like pity for his father to swallow and Beau did not want to start off on the wrong foot.

Charlie startled. "You can cook?"

Beau shrugged. "Mom sure as hell can't, so it was either learn or starve to death. I had to wait two years until she would let me near the stove." He smirked. "By then, I was almost anorexic."

"You poor thing," Charlie said dryly. "I don't know how you survived on pizza and frozen fish sticks all that time."

Beau sighed, mock-suffering, bringing a limp wrist to his forehead. "Oh, you have no idea how many Chinese takeout cartons I had to wallow through. Mom was never meant to be a housewife. Her lasagna was more like rocks coated in ketchup." He shuddered.

"Gross," Charlie humored. "Well, there's not much to make here. I didn't have time to stock the kitchen. How about we order takeout tonight and I let you sleep off the jet-lag?"

Beau smiled. "Thanks, Dad." He turned to climb the stairs to his old bedroom, but before he reached the landing, he twisted around and held up a finger imperiously. "But tomorrow, I'm totally making tortellini with veggies and cheese." He winked and disappeared into his room, yelling behind him "And no complaints!"

He closed the door on his father's hearty laughter.

...

His room looked almost exactly the way he had left it. There was a dinosaur of a computer on a baby blue desk that inexplicably matched the walls and the coverlet of a full sized bed that he remembered dwarfing his eleven year old self. He had shot up in recent years, though, so now the bed was the perfect size for a 5'5", skinny little Beau.

That was somewhat depressing, if he thought about it too hard.

Beau didn't have a problem with his height, but sometimes it irritated him, having to crane his neck to look up at most of the guys in his grade.

Beau was a stick of a guy, with slim limbs, pale skin and dark eyes, obscured by his rather large, albeit somewhat stylish glasses. His hair was messy, brown and needed a haircut. His cheeks were a bit hollow. Everyone was constantly telling him he needed to eat more. What they didn't know was that his stomach was a bottomless pit that devoured anything degradable within reach.

Presently, he pushed his glasses up with his pinky (old habit) and lay down to regain the hours he had lost on the plane.

He closed his eyes. Unpacking could wait.

...

It was the first day of school.

He could do this, he thought to himself as he rearranged his bedroom for what felt like the thousandth time in the same morning.

He was going to die, he thought to himself as he shoved pencils and ballpoints into his backpack.

As promised, Beau had done most of the cooking the past two days as he'd gotten settled in and even though Charlie had showered him with praise for the meals (which he appreciated), he mostly did it because of a combination of anxiety and a lack of anything else productive to do. He had emailed and chatted with one of his closer friends from Arizona as well as checked in with his harebrained mother who was traveling the country with newly acquired husband, Phil. He was an alright dude, if a little awkward around Beau. It was alright. Beau knew he could be a little intimidating to his mother's suitors. (Haha. Not. He was 134 pounds wet, he couldn't intimidate a bunny).

Or maybe, it was because he was a teenager and all adult men had an instinctual fear of the thing that would eventually replace them.

He swallowed, wolfed down breakfast and stressed over what to wear for an hour before deciding on the plain t-shirt and skinny jeans he had pulled out in the beginning. He smacked a kiss to Charlie's grizzled cheek, said "Pray for me, please," and bolted out the door to his awesome new truck. As he drove down the streets of Forks, he decided to name her Jean Grey after the X-Men member, as a reference to both the truck's coloring and the name of his hometown: Phoenix.

He liked to think he was cool like that.

The school was a small campus on a stretch of land consisting of wet, dull grass and tiny brick structures that made up the institute. There were a bunch of what looked like little houses scattered around, numbered and each containing a classroom. The main building was 101, where most of the lockers and offices were located, so he headed there first to get his schedule.

He shifted in on himself as he felt eyes gawking at him as he parked, and when he slid out of the car, there was a ripple of whispers following him as he entered the school. He winced. Great. He hated gossip.

He felt like a bug under a microscope, girls and boys of all ages staring at him curiously, eagerly, interested like he was some rare type of plant. Well, he thought, he was never one to be psyched out by a little staring. He held his head high and walked purposefully towards the main building, his messenger bag bouncing against his hip.

The woman at the front desk was friendly as she went over his schedule with him, and handed him a map of the campus. He thanked her and headed off to his first class-Trigonometry, Building 107-and ducked his head as he walked outside again, feeling eyes on him as he opened up the map and squinted through his wet lenses.

"Yo, new boy!"

Beau internally groaned. This was it. The summary of his existence at Forks High in one sentence. _The new boy._ _**It**_ was about to begin—his torturous assimilation into the social hierarchy of a new school, of a new world. Basically.

The boy addressing him was a slim Asian-American boy with floppy hair and high cheekbones. Beau had to admit, his glasses were cool.

"Need any help?" The boy's smile was cheeky.

"Uh," said Beau eloquently. "No? I don't think so—"

"Trust me," the boy said, which inexplicably made Beau suspicious of his trustworthiness. "I know it looks easy, but this place is a maze." He stuck out his hand, which was large and bulky compared to his skinny wrist. That meant he was gonna grow, Beau grumbled to himself enviously as he shook it. "I'm Eric. And you're Charlie Swan's kid, right? Beauregard?"

Beau hummed an affirmative. "Charlie's kid, yes. Beauregard, hell no. I'm Beau."

Eric blinked, confused. "As in... 'boo'? Like, a ghost?"

"No," Beau said dryly. "Beau as in, 'hey beau!' Like, sweetie or honey. My mom's weird, don't give me that look."

"Sorry," Eric snickered. "You're name is basically 'baby'. Or, like, sweetiepie. Or sugarnups."

"Ohmygod," said Beau. "I don't know you. Get away from me." But he was laughing, so Eric only slung an arm around his shoulder and frog-marched him across campus.

"You and me, we're gonna go far, kid," Eric said.

"I can hear the '80s montage music," Beau muttered to himself, wondering how traumatized he could get on the first day.

...

Eric, despite all appearances otherwise, actually proved to be useful in certain fields. Like, finding the cafeteria for example or introducing him to his group of friends, which included two girls—Angela and Jessica—and two other guys, Mike and Tyler. Angela, a mousy, bookish girl with horn-rimmed glasses, Jessica, a sharp-tongued blonde, Mike, a jock with biceps and a horrible fashion sense and Tyler, a black boy with a deep-seated interest for art. They all tried to call him Beauregard as soon as they met him, but he straightened them out as soon as he could. No way was he being known as Beauregard for his entire high school career. No way.

They were all pretty chill people, except for Jessica, who seemed a little high-strung, with no explanation other than the fact that junior prom was coming up in the Spring and everyone was freaking out.

"So," said Jessica furtively as Beau sat down with a completely health conscientious lunch consisting of pizza, garlic-and-salt-covered broccoli and low fat (read: high sugar) chocolate milk. "You're probably wondering about the Cullens."

Beau blinked at her. "Who?" he asked, nervous all of a sudden.

"Oh, God," said Mike. "Not them again."

"What," Beau exhaled, confused.

"The _Cullens_," Jessica emphasized. Beau could hear her italicizing every syllable. It was weird. "They're, like, the coolest people in school."

Eric choked on his milk.

"What are we, in a John Hughes movie?" Mike griped. "They're just Dr. Cullen's kids—adopted, anyways, but no one cares about that."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Jessica just likes gossiping. And they're not the coolest kids in school. Justthemostbeautiful," she muttered quickly into her salad.

"What," said Beau.

"Behind you," Jessica whispered.

"Why the hell are you whispering, they're freaking halfway across the cafeteria," Tyler said.

"Shut up, Tyler," Jessica growled, but Beau wasn't paying attention as he was already twisting around to glance at the table Eric was not-so-subtly-gesturing to with his straw.

Sitting in variously artful poses one would find in Vogue magazine, were some of the most freakishly beautiful people Beau had ever seen in his pitiful lifetime. He could feel the flush climbing up his cheekbones and shook his head. Was... was it normal for someone to be that dazzling?

They were all pale, pale with perfectly arched eyebrows that looked plucked but weren't, gleaming hair that varied from pitch black to amazingly beach blond, their features chiseled like some sort of statue Michelangelo would've wept for. Forget Michelangelo, Beau dismissed as soon as he thought it as his eyes settled on the bronze-haired man-candy brooding in the corner. Freaking angels, man. Fucking _Adonis_.

"What," echoed Beau, again.

"_What_," mimicked Jessica. "Is that all you can say?"

"No," Beau frowned. "I'm just... kind of starstruck, actually, and I don't even... know who they are? Should I be swooning or something?"

Angela giggled.

Beau whistled lowly. "Can I say man-candy?"

Everybody at the table froze. It was like in an X-Men movie, when Charles Xavier froze time and space and everything stopped moving in one moment.

Maybe I am in an X-Men movie, Beau mused. And the Cullens in the corner are mutants with the power of super beauty. And I'm a mutant with the power of embarrassing myself.

For some reason, the pixie beauty in the corner fell onto the floor, laughing. The bronze boy in the corner looked scandalized, while the tall boy with probably steroid-induced muscles preened and flexed his arms. The blondes stared at each other like some sort of weird ritual, stone faced.

Beau dismissed it.

For some reason, Jessica bull-dozed over his accidental outing of himself and said "YES BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT."

Angela blinked.

Eric turned to Beau, eyes wide, and said "Wait, are you ga—"

"They're all _together_," Jessica said viciously, voice loud enough to run over Eric's vital question.

"Um," said Beau, not sure whether or not he was supposed to respond to Eric. "I kinda guessed that, seeing as they're all sitting together...?"

"Ohmygawd, you're so oblivious," Jessica exhaled in one breath. "They're all dating. _Each other._ Rosalie, the blond girl, is with Emmett, the muscly one, and Alice, the tiny girl, is with Jasper, the one who looks like he's in pain. Edward, the pretty one with the brown hair, well, he's not dating anyone. I guess no one here's good enough for him." Her voice was dark and she stabbed a carrot with her fork.

"Someone sounds bitter," Tyler said slyly and got hit in the head with a garlic roll.

At this point, Jessica decided it would be more strategic to turn the conversation back to the elephant in the room. "SO YOU'RE GAY THEN?"

Beau blinked. "Are... we not talking about the Cullens anymore?"

Somewhere, behind them, Emmett toppled over, mouth open and clapping like a seal.

"What the fuck is wrong with the Cullens today?" Tyler asked slowly.

Alice beat the ground with her fist.

...

"So."

"I am a homosexual, _leavemealone_," said Beau desperately as he shuffled his way around the senior boy approaching him. The guy raised an eyebrow. He was the thirtieth person to come up to him that day, asking whether or not he was gay.

"Bad day?" he asked.

"No fucking idea," Beau said flatly and entered his science class.

The fan blasted him in the face. What the hell. It was freaking winter. What sadomasochistic bastard put on a fan in Forks, during March? His hair flew up around him and he spat a strand out that was on his tongue. Gross. He looked around. Mike was in the second row, grinning, Angela was in the back, freaking Edward Cullen looked like he was about to puke...

Someone get Cullen a bucket, he thought. The teacher directed him into the empty seat next to said Cullen and Beau shrugged, half-reluctantly. He wasn't quite in the mood for being puked on, but he still appreciated more time to ogle that jaw line.

Heh heh. He was a bad person.

He opened his book to the designated page, glanced at Cullen... and started, because the guy was glaring at him like he had just stabbed his mother and father and Jesus Christ. What.

"What?" he mouthed. "Is there something on my face?" He swiped at his right cheek, wondering if he had any leftover pizza sauce crusting on his skin.

Cullen shook his head. It didn't look like he was breathing. He had a hand clamped over both his nose and mouth and his chest was unnaturally still.

"Dude," said Beau, really alarmed now. "Breathe."

Edward shook his head violently, again.

"Do I need to do the Heimlich?" he asked, turning his body towards him, nervously. "Should I get the nurse?" Then, he reached out a hand, not exactly sure what he was going to do with it, but he was _not_ having his science partner die on his freaking first day.

Edward either heard the call of the wild, or God telling him to run, because he rushed out of there like a bat out of hell just as the late bell began to ring.

"And so Darwin-uh, Cullen?" said the teacher, but Edward didn't listen, nearly banging into the door on the way out.

"Whoa," said Beau, blinking, before shaking his head sympathetically. "Must've been something he ate."

...

"So," said Charlie, washing dishes at the kitchen sink. "How was school?"

Beau proceeded to make a dark noise in his throat and stomp up the stairs, giving into his teenage urges for once.

"I guess we're not having any guests," Charlie said to himself. He hummed to himself quietly as he scrubbed at a plate.

...


	2. La Foule

...

The next few days were a bit more bearable, if only because the mysteriously handsome Edward Cullen was playing hooky for bit while Beau recalibrated the fact that somehow, despite them not being related, the Cullens all had similar eyes, facial expressions and bone structure. Not to mention the fact that they all had the same, pallid, bone-white complexion. What was Carlisle Cullen feeding his kids, virgin blood? Maybe they all used the same foundation, he mused. Or maybe they lived in a cave.

He drove up to the house that Wednesday after school to see a darkly colored pick up in his normal parking spot. He frowned as he walked up to the front door, which was ajar. He tapped on the wood, calling out "Dad?" nervously.

"In the kitchen, Beau," he heard him say and Beau relaxed. That would've been really freaking scary, coming home to an empty house with the door unlocked and open.

There were two other men in the kitchen with his father, sitting around the table like they were having a meeting of some sort. An older, Native American man in a wheelchair that Beau vaguely recognized from his memories and a younger, lithe dude with long, dark hair and big eyes.

"Beau, this is Billy and you remember his son, Jake," Charlie was saying and Beau blinked, smiling as he moved further into the room.

"Yeah, I remember," he said. "We used to play together on Sunday afternoons. You fixed up my baby," Beau gestured outside to the Chevy he was so attached to, now. "Thanks, by the way. I'm pretty sure she might be the love of my life."

Jake grinned, teeth blaring white against his dark skin. "No problem man, it's just good to see you," and they did that weird half-hug, chest-bump thing that teenagers do.

"God, you're taller than me," Beau muttered grumpily and Jacob smirked.

"Everybody's taller than you, Beau," Charlie said wryly from where he was sitting at the table and Beau put his hands on his hips irritably.

"And whose fault is that, I wonder," he said, cocking a hip.

"Your mother's," Charlie countered.

"That's it," said Beau, sticking his nose in the air. "Me and the guests are having pizza tonight while you get the leftover meatloaf." Jacob snickered at Charlie's disgruntled expression.

"You're so cruel." Billy said, smirking. "Worse than my wife, your boy."

"In the meantime, Jake, you're coming with me," Beau said, dragging him by his sleeve up the stairs, to his room.

"Door stays open, Beau," Charlie called as he turned a page in his newspaper, smiling when he heard Beau blowing a raspberry in his bedroom.

Billy snickered.

"Whoa," said Jacob as he turned around, taking in the bright walls and old furniture. "You really haven't changed a bit, have you."

"Shuddup." Beau smiled to himself. It had really been a long time since he'd hung out with Jacob.

As a kid living in Washington, Beau had gone to school on the nearby La Push reservation up until the sixth grade. All of his friends from school, including Jacob, were a part of the Quileute tribe, except for him. Beau's family had moved from la Push to Forks two years before the divorce, but the school had made an exception for Beau, and allowed him to continue attending the primary school on the Rez. It was mostly because of his father's importance in the community, but also because Charlie had grown up on the reservation with his Quileute mother. Charlie hadn't decided to stay on the reserve, being only one half Native American, and looking it, but he still had kept close relationships with the people there, including Billy Black and his son. He'd returned to La Push to raise Beau with his wife, and Beau had fond memories of his childhood on the reservation. He vividly remembered summer afternoons at the Cliffs, watching the older boys jump off the edge and laughing wildly when they surfaced, spluttering water everywhere and shaking their too long hair out of their eyes.

"God," he said aloud, "It's been forever."

Jacob shrugged. "You left, what can you do?" he asked, bluntly honest. "Now you're back, so you better come by and see the boys, otherwise they'll start kicking your door down."

"I wouldn't put it past them," Beau laughed. "How's Leah and Seth and the rest of them doing?"

Jacob paused for a moment, fingering a framed picture on the dresser. "Yeah, they're all alright. Leah had this nasty breakup about a year or so ago, but she's doing okay."

"Man, I wish I had kept more in touch with you guys," Beau said earnestly. "But you know, with the divorce and all, I guess it just seemed easier..."

"To forget?" Jacob probed. "No, I get it. It's not a big deal. You remember when my Mom died; I shut everybody out, so I can't really talk about coping with things."

Beau remembered Mrs. Black. She'd been a plump, short woman with kind eyes and a thin mouth, always chewing on a lump of spearmint gum, smelling like peppermint and lime. Jacob had shut down after the accident, lips permanently down-turned, eyes dark and flat and he'd turned away from Beau, from everybody except his father. It'd taken a month of radio silence and Beau turning up at his door in the middle of the night to get him to breakdown and start really coming to terms with the idea that she was never coming back.

And even still, Beau didn't know what to say to make it better, because he missed her too, like a physical ache that just wouldn't go away.

So he kept his mouth shut and sat on the bed, pushing his glasses up with his pinkie finger, because he still remembered the silent, dark-haired and frighteningly quiet boy that Jacob had been.

"So..." Jacob drawled, pulling him out of his morose thoughts. "Can I ask about Arizona? Any boyfriends I have to beat up?"

"Dude, no," Beau laughed, that idea seemingly hysterical to him. "No boyfriends now, or in the near future."

Jacob sat and reclined on Beau's bed in what was probably supposed to be a seductive pose, but just looked vaguely painful. "You never know, Beau," Jacob drawled. "I always thought those Cullens a bit too pretty to be..." He paused for dramatic effect. "..._exclusive."_

Beau was unimpressed. "As enticing as your implying an orgy between adoptive siblings is, I'm pretty sure the Cullens are a bit out of my league."

Jacob made a noise more fitting for a dying cat than a teenage boy. "Gross, dude. Wait." A glazed look crossed his face. "Nah, that'd be pretty hot."

Beau wrinkled his nose delicately.

"Aw, c'mon Princess, don't be like that," Beau's former best friend teased.

"Don't call me Princess," Beau deadpanned.

Jacob laughed. "You always hated that, remember?"

There was a short pause in which both occupants of the room recalled an incident in which seven year old Beau had pushed a loudmouthed Jake into one of the many streams crossing the Reservation. He'd come up spluttering, bangs dripping into his eyes and Beau had laughed so hard he'd fallen in after him.

They had both woken up with colds the next day, skin fever hot and nose Rudolf red.

Beau smiled as he walked over and perched on the soft bench underneath his window. "You're such a jerk, Jacob Black," he said fondly.

Jacob raised a lazy hand and swatted the air in Beau's general direction. "Still the better looking one, anyways."

Beau scoffed. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night."

"What can I say?" Jacob shrugged. "Girls have higher expectations than guys do."

"I'd beg to differ." Beau's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"I forgot how charming you are when you get all snippy." The other boy sat up, back propped against fluffed pillows and he raked a hand through his wild hair, making it look even more ruffled.

Beau eyed the mass of inky black waves and remembered a time when he'd been jealous of how long the Rez boys grew out their hair. His mother never let his curls sneak past the bottom of his ears and at that moment, that'd been the worst sort of torture, having regular boy-short hair when all the rest of his friends had their gorgeous manes that fluttered in the wind like superhero capes.

Jacob was still looking up at him and Beau didn't think Forks was going to be quite so terrible after all.

...

Going back to school wasn't so daunting now that Beau had some friends waiting for him in the wings.

The day was dark and cloudy, typical of Forks and the roads were wet and slick so Beau had to drive with a bit more caution than he would've normally, but not even that could douse his bubbly mood. A mainstream pop song was spilling out of his car's clunky radio, something about starry nights and rosy cheeks, _really_ cheesy, but Beau found himself singing along (read: howling).

Nothing could possibly go wrong, not with him feeling like he was on top of the world.

Eric, Tyler, Angela and Mike were congregated around Jessica's secondhand station wagon, talking and laughing about something Beau didn't catch, but once he finished parking his Baby, he wandered over and beamed at them.

"Ooh," drawled Tyler, waggling his eyebrows. "Someone's in a good mood today."

Beau rolled his eyes. "You're so funny," he said, unmoved. "What? Is it illegal to smile at people now? Is this a thing I need to worry about?"

"Did something happen over the weekend?" Jessica asked, oddly eager, and she moved closer, eyes as interested as a shark that'd just smelled blood.

Angela sighed, "Jess, don't be so nosy."

Jess huffed. "Can you blame me?" she demanded, tossing her curls over a sweater'd shoulder. "Nothing _ever_ happens in Forks, so how else am I supposed to entertain myself?"

_"Desperate Housewives?" _Beau offered, and the boys snickered loudly to themselves even as Jessica made an outraged squawking noise and Angela rolled her eyes up to the sky.

Jessica made a face at him as she turned to walk towards the school, yelling back at them, "Come on boys, let's not be late for class."

And that was when Beau saw him. He was standing by the entrance to Building A with his sister, the dark-haired one, looking furtively around him, gaze darting from side to side as if looking for someone. For a moment, his eyes caught Beau's and his eyebrows wrinkled, before he quickly averted them, staring at the floor determinedly, refusing to look up again.

Edward Cullen had returned.

Beau had almost forgotten about him, the poor guy who had disappeared in a rush to the bathroom and had never come back, until now, a week later. Jessica, the ever accurate rumor mill, had insisted that he had gotten mono or something, and hadn't been able to come back to school until he got it out of his system for good.

Seeing him now was just as striking as the first time. Beau couldn't believe that such a physically beautiful person could exist—it was kinda annoying, to be honest. But here he was, purposefully looking away from Beau, moving silently from the entrance as Beau walked by.

He didn't look sick anymore, which was good, though he was still that alarming shade of white. He didn't look like he had a fever or anything, though. Beau didn't feel like getting sick, so that was a plus.

Beau remembered he was staring so he waved at Edward, trying for the friendly approach. But the guy refused to meet his eyes and so Beau quickly put his hand down so he wouldn't look like an idiot.

So much for that.

...

The day went smoothly after that. English was easy, as they were in the middle of reading _A Catcher In The Rye,_ which Beau had read in tenth grade back in Arizona. Eric kept bugging him with questions about the answers to an AP History test he'd taken on Monday, but Beau didn't tell him the questions, just directed him to study in the right places.

Beau didn't see Cullen at lunch, and he never glimpsed him again. By the time science rolled around he was sure that Edward had probably gone home already, so when he saw Edward sitting calmly at their lab table, he was completely unprepared.

He looked a little bit tense, sitting all alone, and Beau could see Mike and Eric glancing over at Beau in concern.

Beau resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Small and skinny he might've been, but he could handle sitting next to Edward "The Raincloud" Cullen.

Once Beau sat down, he could see Cullen casting quick glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

Poor guy, Beau sympathized. Couldn't have been easy, nearly sicking up in front of his entire class. Strangely, no one was snickering or laughing, though, so Beau guessed the Cullens still had some clout in that they were intimidatingly cool, beautiful and all around perfect.

Beau was a good person, though, despite all evidence to the contrary, so he pushed three days of notes over to the poor guy.

Edward's perfectly shaped shoulders were stiff underneath a designer button-up and Jesus Christ, did this guy even know how to get dressed without spending 800 dollars?

"It's the notes," Beau voiced unnecessarily. "Um. From the past few classes. I thought you might want to... copy?" His voice trailed up at the end because Edward's face could've been stone for all he was responding.

"Thanks," those cool lips finally formed, golden-amber eyes barely flickering his way...

Whoa. Whoa. Hold up. Wait a minute. Beau could've sworn on his grandfather's grave that the last time he'd seen Cullen, those eyes had been pitch black and wide with nausea or something similar to it, at least.

And no one had eyes that color—_golden-amber_, what the hell was this, some badly written fantasy fanfiction? Yeah, very likely.

Beau ignored that spirally vortex of thought in favor of lending Cullen a pen and watching as the other dude put his messy, loopy handwriting to shame with some form of simplistic, yet annoyingly impressive calligraphy.

"Wow," he said aloud. "Nice handwriting." Was there anything this guy couldn't do? Even his voice sounded perfect.

Edward shrugged, a fluid movement that belied the tight grip he had on Beau's ballpoint.

"Anyways," Beau backtracked rapidly, pushing his glasses up nervously with the tip of his pinky finger. "You didn't miss much—Mr. Banner just assigned us a lab yesterday, so I guess he's gonna want you to start it during lunch tomorrow. Unless, you know, you wanted to look at some of the work I did so far, 'cause. Y'know. We're lab partners and all."

Beau babbled when he was nervous. If that wasn't obvious.

Edward nodded seriously. "Right. A lab, of course." A man of few words. Beau could dig it. He'd had a few quieter friends back in Arizona, so Edward wouldn't be so hard to deal with. As long as he wasn't an asshole.

"It's pretty simple, he probably has the worksheet with him, and if he doesn't, I'll photocopy mine and email it to you today, if you'd like."

Edward's expression didn't change. "That won't be necessary," he annunciated slowly, like he was focusing on getting each syllable right instead of punching somebody in the face. "I'll talk to Mr. Banner today. Thank you."

Could an imitation of a wooden board get any better than that?

Beau blinked, and wisely tried to stop making conversation. It obviously wasn't winning any brownie points with this ray of sunshine.

"Sure," he muttered under his breath. "No problem, dude."

_What's his deal?_ Beau grumbled to himself. _Homophobia?_ That was something Beau could handle, but for some reason Beau didn't think that was it. Usually the few assholes he encountered were a lot louder when expressing their displeasure at his existence.

No, something was up with Cullen and Beau didn't think it had anything to do with his orientation.

Well. As long as Cullen minded his business, Beau would mind his, no harm, no foul.

...

"Let the record show that I loudly warned you all of my uselessness before tears started flowing," Beau warned at gym period, after the Edward Cullen Conversation Fail of Biology.

"You know, you and Jessica should have a competition to see who's more of a drama queen," Angela said dryly.

"I would win," Beau declared immediately. "Consider Jessica disqualified."

Their conversation was cut short when Coach Zepler shouted "Stretches, buttercups, stretches! We don't want any pulled hamstrings or watery eyeballs in my gymnasium, no sir!"

Zepler was a tall, greying woman with fish lips, iron thighs and a big nose. Add in Nike sneakers, a fuchsia jumpsuit and a voice that could rattle concrete and she was an intimidating figure among all the sissy boys and girls of Forks High.

Beau obligingly did the assigned stretches, though very grudgingly. Touch-toes, arm circles, shoulder rolls, half-splits, lunges. Ugh.

"Someone shoot me now," he heard Jess grumble out of his hearing range and smothered his giggle into his armpit.

"C'mon, buttercups, let's go, go, GO!" Zepler roared as she led the way outside, onto a looping, orange running track, which also served as the cross country training field. It was cold out, the air biting, and even most of the girls who liked wearing shorts in the smack middle of winter had covered up for gym. The only upside to the entire thing was that the outside unit was nearly finished. Soon, they'd be going inside for volleyball (Beau was understandably thrilled).

(Not).

Beau wasn't very good with hand-eye coordination. Give him a ball and a goal and he'd probably put somebody in the hospital. But he could run. And he was fast. So he took several laps around the track for most of the period before taking a short break near a bench. It was strange, as he utterly despised all other forms of exercise, but running was relaxing to him. His legs pumping rhythmically underneath him, lungs and thigh muscles burning pleasantly, wind ruffling his hair, eyes streaming a little towards the end. He could run and not think and calm the buzzing in his head for a just a bit and to be honest, he could always use a few more minutes of mindless exercise propelling him forward every day or so.

There were a few canisters on the lowest rung of bleachers holding different drinks for the runners, thankfully. He managed to gulp down three paper cups worth of water before anyone noticed he was missing.

"Good run, Swan!" Zepler shouted a few meters away. "Keep moving like that and we'll make a man outta you yet!"

"Good God," he groaned to himself. He wanted to wet his burning face a little bit, but it was too cold for that. His glasses were fogging up. "Being a man is overrated."

A giggle at his left shoulder made him jump and swear and whirl around wildly. He relaxed when he realized it was just one of the Cullens.

"Um. Alice, right?" he asked with no small amount of hesitation.

Alice (?) laughed again. Christ, her giggles sounded like silver bells. If he wasn't as bent as a bendy straw from an elementary boy's lunchbox, he'd be swooning right now. Heck, he was gay and he was still swooning. She was real short (shorter than him and that was saying something) and her hair, scissored into a professional pixie cut, was dark and spiky and her eyes were huge yellow-gold droplets in her pale, perfect face. Her mouth was small and red, like a berry, and Beau found himself smiling at her automatically, she was just so cute.

"Hi," she said. "Yeah, I'm Alice. It's nice to meet you, Beauregard!"

Wow. She was a lot nicer than The Other Cullen, that was for sure.

"Nice to meet you too," he said honestly. He held out his hand for her to shake. "Call me Beau. I don't think we have any classes together, sorry."

Her hand was icy cold compared to his sweaty skin, but he didn't flinch away from her. She laughed. "No, but I think my brother Edward might be in Biology with you," she said conspiratorially.

"Yeah," he said. "People have told me you guys are adopted, but you two look really similar. Your... your eyes and your skin... all kinda eerie, sorry if I'm coming off rude."

"No, it's fine," she told him, kindly. "It's a bit of coincidence, if I do say so myself."

Beau frowned and scrubbed his fingers under his glasses and over his eyes consideringly. "Hnn," he said, as he wiped his face clean of any sweat droplets.

He opened his mouth to continue talking but was interrupted by Jess who yelled over the pitch. "Beau?!" Her voice was incredulous and when he looked over, he could see her wide eyes from where he was standing.

"Oh." Beau waved, more a waggle of fingers really, before shifting back towards Alice, a little torn. "Sorry, I have to get back."

Alice nodded, head bobbing rhythmically. "No, I get it. See you later?"

Beau hummed an affirmative. "Sure, why not?" He smiled quickly and jogged back over to Jess, looking back just once to see Alice giving someone in the bleachers a thumbs-up.

Beau was too busy fending off Jess's insistent questions to give much thought to that transaction, to be honest.

...

Beau had thought he'd prepared a little for another intensely awkward lab period with Edward. He thought, you know, that he'd already pinned Edward down as a guy that wasn't so good with talking to people he didn't know and thought silence was a better alternative to awkward conversation.

That Beau could deal with.

But, of course, nothing was that simple with Edward Cullen.

Edward looked like he was meditating or something. His eyes were closed and he had a small upturn to the edge of his lips that made Beau wonder if he was smiling. He was barely breathing and his elbows were up on the table, his hands crossed neatly, one on top of the other in front of him. Beau put his messenger bag down on the floor next to his seat, and sat down gently, watching Edward cautiously. He had a strange urge to poke him to see if he was alive. Hesitantly, he put out his hand reaching slowly and that was when Edward spoke.

"Hi, Beau." Edward spoke lowly, without opening his eyes.

Beau was frozen with his hand outstretched. He quickly retracted it and turned to face Edward, surprise etched into his face. "Uh—? How did you—?" That was the first time anybody had called him Beau at first, instead of Beauregard.

"I heard you sit down," Edward answered calmly, turning a bit to face the other boy properly.

Beau blinked.

Edward finally opened his eyes, his smile a bit rigid, but it was still a smile. Beau wasn't picky. "I'm sorry— we haven't been properly introduced, but I wasn't quite feeling myself the day you arrived here..."

Beau smiled sympathetically and nodded at him to continue.

Edward's words were a bit stilted, but he was trying. It was strangely cute, how he stiffly shrugged and smiled awkwardly. "Anyways, I'm Edward, Edward Cullen. Our parents know each other. My father is Dr. Cullen, he works at the hospital."

Beau blinked and nodded. "Oh, yeah. Dad mentioned him, yesterday, I think." He tilted his head. "So, are you okay? You didn't look so good a couple days ago."

Edward's mouth turned up on one side. "Believe it or not, I came down with mono in the middle of school."

"Oh I can believe it all right," Beau laughed, a bit unnerved. "The speed at which you sprinted to the bathroom was Olympic medal worthy. I'm just glad you're feeling better now, so I don't have to worry about you throwing up on me."

Automatically Beau winced at himself—_that_ _was rude, Beau, what the hell_—but it was alright because, to his surprise, Edward began laughing sincerely.

"I'll go get us a microscope for the lab," Edward managed to squeeze out after his chuckles died away.

Beau quirked a side of his mouth as he watched Edward jog over to the back of the room.

Maybe Edward wasn't so weird after all, Beau told himself, considering. Maybe he had just imagined the look in the parking lot that morning and the angry way he ignored Beau yesterday. It was probably true that being suddenly out in a new school could make a person paranoid. Not that Beau had been planning on keeping it a secret; it was just really weird and unsettling to be the talk of the entire school after only one day.

He'd been planning on trying to fly under the radar, so that when he eventually left Forks to go back to his mother it wouldn't be such a huge thing. But he'd already made new friends, reconnected with an old one, outed himself accidentally, and found a new crush all in the span of one week.

So far, flying low was out of the question.

But, as hunky Edward "Up Chucks" Cullen came back, bulging forearms full of two microscopes, Beau thought it wasn't all so bad.

They did the lab pretty quickly compared to the rest of the class—Beau had already done this one back in Arizona and Edward was perfect at everything, so it wasn't much of a surprise that they finished early. Beau glanced outside and blinked, surprised.

It was snowing.

Tiny, perfect little flakes were falling from the sky, which was gray, as always. They were little more than specks and when they hit the ground, they were barely there for a second before fading away into the mud, but still, Beau's mouth flapped open and he pressed his fingertips to the window, fogging the glass for a second before wiping it away and pressing closer.

"It's snowing," he said, stupidly.

Edward shifted quietly. "Yes," he answered. "It does that a lot, in Forks."

Beau didn't reply, only placed his hand more firmly against the windowpane and watching as his heat spread thick fog against the glass's cold.

"Have you never seen snow before?" he heard Cullen ask.

"I have," he said, and paused. "Like, five years ago."

There was a faint chuckle from beside him. "Wow."

Beau frowned. "Dude, I live—lived—in Arizona. What did you expect me to say?"

"But didn't you live here, before, when you were a child?" Edward asked, suddenly; Beau frowned.

"How'd you know that?" Beau asked calmly.

Edward shrugged. "Small town, you know?"

There was a short pause. "Yeah, I did live here when I was younger. But that was a long time ago."

Edward arched an eyebrow, curiously. "Why did you move?" he asked quietly, before saying "Sorry, if I'm being rude, I was just—"

Beau only glanced once at the window before sighing and shrugging—it couldn't hurt. "I lived in Forks, but before that we lived on the reservation, in La Push," he said, honestly, not missing the way Edward's shoulders seemed to inexplicably tighten and then forcibly relax.

"My dad's half-Quileute, but my mom wanted to be closer to her dad, so we moved. But I guess my dad still wanted me to know about the culture, so I continued going to school on the Rez. And it was awesome; I had a lot of good friends..." He stopped. "My parents divorced a few years after we moved. And." He huffed, softly, frustrated with how he couldn't seem to get three sentences out without _freaking stopping._ "My mom got custody and we went to Phoenix. That was it, I guess."

Edward was nodding sympathetically. "I can't imagine," he said, and Beau appreciated the effort. But, it had been a bad time for him. He hadn't talked to Dad, his mom had run half-way across the country to get away from him, he'd been uprooted from the only friends he'd ever known. It hadn't been pretty. But René, his mom, had been there for him, even if mostly she was too scattered to make a decent meal or pay the electric bill on time. There were other kids who didn't have it as good.

He was lucky, really lucky.

He said, instead of all of that, "I had my mom and she was enough. She took care of me." He didn't like talking about himself, much, so he asked "So, what about you, what's Edward Cullen's story?" His name sounded weird on Beau's tongue—it was just so sophisticated and old, you know, like something your grandpa would be named if he were European and classy. And that was kinda weird; Edward Cullen.

Edward mimicked Beau from earlier, shoulders shrugging noncommittally. "My mother, Esme, she wanted to live in a smaller town, somewhere cozier than what we had before, in Alaska. So we moved, two years ago. Wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't have a lot of friends." His white, large hands were balled up into tense fists on the desk. He probably didn't even realize it.

Somehow that didn't surprise Beau. The Cullens were undeniably strange. Unable, in a way, to really fit in because they were just all so inexplicably perfect.

Separated from the rest, just because they were so intimidatingly everything everyone ever wanted to be.

Beau tilted his head.

Edward Cullen wasn't really rude or mad at Beau. He was just shy.

Maybe they could be friends, after all.

...

Beau had spoken too soon.

Don't get Beau wrong, it was good for a bit. Edward and Beau weren't automatically "BFFS" during their first week of knowing each other or whatever, but they got along. Beau waved at Ed in the hallways and although sometimes Tall, Pale and Handsome looked a little freaked out by social interaction, he usually succeeded in waving back, even if it was while cringing awkwardly.

They talked easier in Science class and that was how Beau figured out Edward was some sort of child prodigy, with the way he took to AP Biology the way a duck took to water. He barely needed to take notes in order to understand what was going on and when he did, it was always briefly and without effort.

Or organization.

That was the one thing Beau could say he was better at than Edward, because Edward's locker was a hot mess. He'd stopped by once, to get the homework, and Ed had slammed the door on a whirlwind of papers, broken, leaking pens and mangled textbooks.

He'd walked back to Baby Jean with a skip in his step, humming some tune Angela had showed him earlier in the day.

And you know what, Beau should've expected something like what was coming.

It happened while he was on the phone with his girl-friend, Marisa, from Arizona, walking back to his car. She was complaining about some boy when he found his phone smacked out of his hands and in somebody else's.

Beau blinked up, dumbly, into viciously narrowed eyes before taking a step back.

It was one of the Cullens, the supermodel blonde chick with perfectly curled hair and cotton-candy lips. Her cherry-red nails were curled tightly over Beau's crappy mobile and Beau's mouth closed and opened in outrage.

"Sweetheart," he started when he found his voice. "What the hell."

The girl sneered nastily and looked down her elegantly sloped nose at him. "Listen, twinkling," she hissed and _what the hell,_ were all The Cullens blessed with stupidly pretty voices? "I don't know who you are, and frankly, I could care less. But I'm not blind and I can see 'pathetic loser' a mile away. Maybe you should wait a hot minute before you start toying with my brother, hmm?"

Beau snorted. Okay, he couldn't help himself, this was freaking hilarious. "Who?" he asked, and maybe he would've gotten himself into a rant over the stupid thing if he hadn't heard Marisa shouting at him in _Legally Blonde 2's_ polished fingers. "Listen, lady, I don't have time for this. Homophobe at me all you want now, but I'll have to book you in for an appointment later."

He figured it was a gay thing-it hadn't been the first time an idiot had decided to accuse him of launching their brother or friend or son over the rainbow maypole. Despite him never having had a boyfriend, _what the hell. _

_"No,"_ she snarled and Beau jumped at the look of hatred that splashed across her pretty face. She... she looked like a monster, her eyes glaring, her painted upper lip curling over too sharp canines. "You stay the fuck away from my brother, Swan, or else. You've caused enough trouble already."

But Beau had enough. "I'm done," he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "I didn't have to deal with half the drama in La Push, dear God," and he plucked his phone out of her cold little fingers and walked away, muttering to himself about crazy overprotective bitches and their crazy overprotective minds.

Marisa was understandably annoyed at him until he explained the situation to her in soothing tones and then she was all sympathy.

"Oh, you know," she said, and he could see her, curling her thick black hair expertly with a slim finger, lounging in the school auditorium, the air conditioner at full blast in the desert heat. "High school girls, they're so possessive—easily jealous, you know?"

"Marisa," Beau muttered, dryly, "She's his sister," because of course this was about Edward, the Now Approachable Raincloud.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "That's even worse. No one likes a meddling sister."

Beau frowned. "I swear, Mar, they're so freaking weird here."

"You're in Mainstreet, USA, suburban America, remember?" He could hear her laugh. "Not in Phoenix anymore."

Beau sighed gustily. "Yeah, sure."

_Fucking Cullens, man_.

...


	3. l'Accordéoniste

Edward's new and strange aversion to him the next day didn't help at all. He lumbered over to Beau's table in the library that afternoon to awkwardly apologize in a rumbling voice—"Sorry about that... thing with my sister, yesterday. Just ignore her, she becomes... weird when she's mad,"—and he didn't even give Beau time enough to open his mouth and respond before he was gone.

Just like that.

It was like they were at square one all over again.

He huffed in frustration at his textbook. He didn't even want to study anyways. It was snowing heavily outside, now, and he'd had to walk to school because he didn't trust himself with Baby Jean. Her tires were still older, from summer, and probably wouldn't have been able to stand up to the icy roads. At least he'd managed to avoid Jessica. She'd been trying to corner him all day to interrogate him about his interaction with Rosalie (?) Cullen, ever since she'd heard about it the day before.

Beau packed up his books when the bell rang and threw his gum in the trash on his way out of the library. He pulled his hat on, adjusted his scarf, and began to tromp his way home, tiny little snowflakes surfing on the wind to the ground as he pushed up his glasses and tilted his head back to the sky.

Forks wasn't all that bad after all, Beau was slowly realizing. He hadn't expected to like the town at all, but possibly to his chagrin, he was actually making friends and beginning to fit in. And that wasn't a bad thing. Like, he always saw in the movies that people were always emphasizing being different and out there, but just being himself for once made all the difference in his life and in his friends.

And it wasn't just in school that he found himself having fun. He'd gone to visit the Reservation during his second week in Forks, and visited with Billy and Jacob, as well as Beau's grandmother. She was a sharp-tongued old Quileute woman with russet, crinkled skin and crows-feet that popped up around her eyes whenever she smiled. He'd sat at her table, chattering, eating soft-bread sandwiches and drinking her sweet lemonade, tolerating her cheek-pinches and remarks about his skinny shoulders. She was the best grandma, and one of the more involved women in the Quileute community. It wasn't just Jacob that had taken to calling her Grandma Swan. Her house was on the edge of the Reservation, overlooking a long stretch of road surrounded by thick cut woods, her wood-beam porch sagging from decades of use. His father had grown up in that house—his old bedroom had been converted into a spare, the sheets new, but the quilt had been made by hand, swirling designs covering the white expanse in thick ink slashes.

Jacob and Beau had steadily rebuilt their friendship, playing video games every other day after school at his house, his dad usually hiding in his office as they yelled and laughed. Jacob was a good friend and despite the years that had passed, it seemed like just yesterday that they'd been little kids daring each other to jump into the frigid water of the North Pacific Ocean. Jake's close friends Embry and Quil were cheerful, rowdy boys who acted a bit too much like their age to really connect to Beau. Beau was content enough to just watch them roughhouse on the soft yard outside of Jacob's garage, bundled up in coats and scarves to protect himself from the biting cold.

Beau was also getting used to life with his father. Charlie had been awkward and a little stilted to get along with at first, but gradually it became clear that living together suited both Beau and his father very well. His dad didn't smother him, and that was fine with Beau. Neither did his father require the coddling his accident prone mother did (there was no question where Beau got his clumsiness from). But at the same time, Beau had taken on house duties very well, and his father claimed that after only two weeks of living in Forks, Beau had already helped him reduce his waistline with his healthy (but delicious) cooking.

He rounded the end of the parking lot and sighed. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of Edward since Biology, and he'd barely said more than three words to him since Mr. Laurence had decided to give lecture the entire period. Beau knew he was being silly, but he felt like he wouldn't be able to rest until he could talk to Edward.

Beau glanced over at the school field as he walked past it. The football team was out, doing drills on the slowly whitening field, which was really, really weird because even Beau knew that football _did not happen in March, it just didn't_. Maybe they were just obsessed, he reasoned with himself.

He'd never been a sporty guy before, but he couldn't help but wonder if Edward did any sports. He had to at least be into exercise. No one got fit like that without at least doing a couple of marathons. For a few moments Beau lost himself in a daydream about running a marathon with Edward, the way some couples did, side by side, before he was jerked out of it by a car whirring by, honking.

Suddenly Beau realized with a groan that he'd forgotten to go to his locker and get his books for homework before he'd left.

Stupid Edward Cullen, with his stupid handsome face, and his stupid and absolutely not adorable inability to communicate like a normal human, making Beau go and daydream when he should have been thinking about more important things in life, like Trigonometry...

Beau stomped all the way back to the school, noticing that the football team had gone as he passed the field. Figured. No coach was sadistic enough to make their players practice long in this weather. He tromped to his locker in shame. He usually wasn't this forgetful. Once more he cursed the spirit of Edward Cullen, blaming him for his misfortune.

He bullied his locker open and shoved a few books into his bag distractedly. He slammed the door shut and turned, only to stop on a dime when he came face to chest with the hulking figure of a senior football player in a letterman jacket.

"Oops! Sorry, dude! I didn't see you there." He smiled sheepishly up at him and attempted to sidle by him only to come up short when the guy mirrored his move. "Uh, I go this way, you go that way?" Beau joked with a half-grin.

The Hulk didn't smile back.

"You know what? I'll go through the back entrance..." said Beau, backing away, his grin fading.

Surprise, surprise, Beau came up short when his back hit something solid that felt suspiciously like another freakishly tall, freakishly muscular person's chest.

_Oh shit._

Beau could feel the cliché crawling up on him. He'd never fully appreciated before the accuracy of high school dramas. For the first time in his life he found himself empathizing with the archetypal geeky hero. He apologized profusely to any deity that might be listening for any and every time he had laughed at one of them.

"Look guys, I don't want any trouble..." Beau started to say. Two other jocks had seemingly apparated from nowhere, and they were all starting to glare. He turned to the one directly behind him and the guy began to smile, all sharp teeth and crooked grin.

He was a pretty handsome dude, too, with spiky blond hair and bright hazel eyes; to be honest, if he weren't freaking Beau the hell out with his bulky gang of creepy All American Football Players, he would've been all over that.

"Don't get me wrong, buddy, we don't want it all that much, either." All American's voice was soothing and low, but the calming effect he intended was counteracted by his buddies giggling.

"Whatever I did wrong, I didn't mean it." By this point, Beau was holding up his hands. "Is there anyway—"

All American Apple Pie laughed, freaking laughed, at that. "Nah, faggot. It's not like it's something you can _control_. You were born like that, after all," The words were said in a friendly tone, but all Beau could see were his eyes, mocking and cold. "At least, that's what everybody tells us, isn't that right, boys?"

There was a ripple of agreeable whispers and Beau just stared at them. "Really. That's what this is all about."

He just couldn't believe it. You know what, he actually could, because this town was freaking sucky and, if he was correct, then it was just about to get ten times as worse. "Okay, okay. Fine, gang up on the little queer. Don't worry, I can take it." He'd been roughed up a bit before, in Arizona. It hadn't been anything serious, nothing like those things you'd see on the news. Just a bit of pushing around, a black eye or a bad rib, but nothing _serious_.

"Don't worry, cock-sucker," All American was saying, voice still friendly and chirpy and wasn't that just freaking _Beau the frick out._ "We're not gonna hurt you." One of his goons snickered. "We're just gonna put you back in the closet."

Beau's cheeks felt cold because the blood was draining from them and he glanced behind them because _fuck no that was a closet door wasn't it. _

He didn't remember charging at them, but he did remember getting a fist to his mouth for his efforts and feeling the clack of his teeth and the snap of his head when he hit the floor. His tongue tasted like blood.

"Freaking queers, man," he heard one of them say and he was up and fighting before he could finish.

Fun facts about Beau: he hated homophobes, but he hated small spaces more.

But there were, what, four, five of them and one of him and they grabbed his shoulders and his arms and one of them swung him into the air, feet kicking and all, so another could get his legs and he was cursing and spitting and pleading for them to please not put him in there, fuck, please—

"PUT HIM DOWN!"

The Hulk paused, whipping his head around in case it was a teacher, but All American still had a firm hold on his shoulders, so he couldn't just twist away. They dropped him anyways, though, pinning him to the ground so he couldn't move, but he was still wriggling like a fish. It was only when another guy struck his face again that he realized he'd been yelling. The slap managed to turn his head, and though his view was tilted, he could see dimly an outline—tall and muscly and unconsciously elegant.

Edward, freaking, Cullen.

His luck, ladies and gentlemen.

But at that moment, he couldn't have been happier. Prince Charming in the flesh. _Oh God, what was his life._

"Yo, Cullen," said the Hulk. "Nothing to see here. Go on."

The pack holding Beau shuffled obligingly to the side, making a path for Ed to walk, and how could thugs literally about to lock him in a closet seem polite, what the hell?

"Put him down," Edward said firmly, chest rising deeply up down up down, as if he'd been running a marathon. His hair was all mussed and his eyes were scarily bright. But despite it all, his voice was calm, like he was just asking for the check or talking about the weather. Casually, as if he'd done it a million times.

"Edward..." Oh, man, was that his voice? He sounded like he'd taken in helium. Somebody put their foot on his face and stepped threateningly and tears sprang into his eyes.

"Shut the fuck up," All American said pleasantly. "Cullen, man, are you really going to do this? Standing up for a faggot? Really?"

"Beating up the Sheriff's kid?" Edward asked, equally as chill. "Really? Thought you were smarter, Miller."

'Miller'. Even his name sounded like an apple pie.

Miller shrugged easily, rolling his shoulders like he was in class or at home. "Gave you a chance, Cullen. You can just get on in the closet with the queer. Don't blame us when he jumps you."

"You're a freak, Miller." Edward sounded disgusted.

"You're one to talk." Miller sneered. "Perfect little Cullen with his cars and his perfect wittle family. If anything, you're the freak here."

Edward looked distantly grossed out, like he was looking at something on the bottom of his shoe rather than anyone important. "Way to sound jealous, Miller."

Miller was unmoved. "Shut the fuck up and get in the closet, Cullen." He smirked. "We don't want to ruin that perfect face of yours, anyways."

Edward paused, sizing them all up harshly with his sharp eyes. Beau knew it was useless. Even if Edward knew some obscure martial arts from wherever the hell he came from, he couldn't possibly go up against five football players alone. And it wasn't like Beau could help or anything. No, he felt very comfortable right where he was (under Miller's foot, with a possible concussion. Yeah.)

Edward went into the closet.

...


	4. Esperaré

Beau banged his elbow and knees when they threw him in after Cullen, hitting the hard floor and knocking over some mops and buckets, and when they closed the door on him, he scrabbled at the wood with his fingernails desperately, slamming his body against it in hopes of being let out. It took Edward taking hold of him and yanking him backwards for him to realize he was nearly shredding his nails to pieces.

"Let me out!" he yelled. "Just fucking let us out, please—" he choked on his own tongue, convulsing. _"Goddammit."_

He couldn't breathe, the space was just too small, air tight and hot in his chest and he could feel himself growing lightheaded as he tried to take in oxygen that just wasn't there, oh crap—

He was freaking out, a panic attack.

And he couldn't fucking breathe.

And all of a sudden, there was a big, cold hand covering his shoulder and a bit of his back. It shook him roughly and he looked up.

He was very close, eyes dark in the dim light and his voice came through thick and slow, like he was talking under water.

"Beau," he said softly. "You need to calm down."

"Fuck, I'm sorry... I just can't, I can't breathe, it's too small, so sorry, so—"

"Beau, look at me. You're hyperventilating. Your pulse is skyrocketing. Look at me." His voice was intensely calm in the little panic-hurricane Beau was riding out. "Match my breathing."

Beau wished he could say he had half as much confidence, as much cool as Edward did. No matter what the situation, he had this aloofness to him that made him untouchable. His breathing slowed a bit, before he felt the tears come rushing.

He sank to the floor and Edward came with him, keeping a grip on his shoulder. He pulled Beau close, enveloping him completely in the circle of his arms. Beau was pretty sure he would be embarrassed about the way he sobbed and hiccupped in Edward's arms later, but he was too busy shaking his way through the biggest _holy shit_ of a panic attack to care at the moment.

By the time he was done, his eyes were streaming tears from exertion and Edward still had him in his awkwardly cold arms, his face half-buried into the guy's shoulder. Edward was sitting half against the door holding Beau against him as he curled up against his side, one hand curled tightly in the fabric of Edward's shirt, the other thrown behind Edward's neck.

He could feel humiliation slipping into his skin like that old friend you desperately pretended you didn't know when they waved at you in public.

"Thanks, Edward," he snuffled, voice still clogged slightly from sobbing.

"Not a problem, Beau," was whispered back and Beau expected him to let go soon, but when he wasn't released, he took that as a clue to keep talking.

"No, not just that. Thanks for—" It was hard to find his voice, "Thanks for... telling them to stop."

Edward's arms tightened imperceptibly, maybe trying to offer comfort, Beau didn't know.

"You shouldn't have to thank me for that." His tone was weird. "It was the decent thing—the human thing to do."

Beau's fingers curled more firmly into Edward's shirt. "But that's not the point—you could've ignored it. You could've just kept on walking, you know? You had a choice and you didn't take it and..." His eyes welled up, wet and salty. "And I'm glad you didn't let me be alone." He choked at the end of it and Edward hushed him kindly. They stayed there for a moment, just soaking it all in. Beau could feel Cullen's cool breath on the back of his neck and he shivered, in a good way, but that just reminded him that this wasn't the most typical situation. So, Beau tried to move away, to give himself some space, but Edward just wouldn't let go.

Beau was tense, now, though, so he laughed awkwardly, voice still a bit thick with tears and snuggled closer. Well. He hadn't expected the end of the day to involve a cuddle session with the most gorgeous guy in the world this side of Angelina Jolie.

Edward let him go eventually, fingers lingering for a bit after he pulled away, trailing up his arms too intimately to wrap around his shoulders. His eyes were strangely dark and intense in the dim light slotting into the room from underneath the locked door and when Beau met them with his own, they glinted.

But his shoulders were stiff and as close as they were, Beau couldn't hear him breathing. It didn't take much to get him worried, so he asked, "Dude, are you okay?"

Edward nodded tightly, and he answered, tightly, "Yeah, fine. It's a bit stuffy in here, don't you think?"

Beau laughed humorlessly. "Seeing as I was the one who just had the crippling anxiety attack, I think I can say yes to that, a little."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Beau, I wasn't thinking—"

"Nah, it's okay," Beau muttered.

He swiped at his eyes, tears clearing so he could see.

The room they were in was dimly lit by a naked yellow light bulb chained to the ceiling, swinging a little bit and casting unnecessarily creepy shadows against the walls. There were two racks covered with towels and cleaners and assorted tools, and a mop stuck in a yellow bucket. It was a small space, but not as small as his claustrophobic subconscious had feared. There was enough room for them to stretch out if they needed to, and enough for Beau to realize that his proximity to Edward, practically sitting in his lap, was frankly ridiculous.

He didn't move away, though. It was pointless, so he just tangled their legs more firmly together and placed his chin in his hands, elbows on his knees, looking up at Edward, who was still against the door.

Edward seemed to have calmed down by then, so that was a plus. Beau wrestled with his thoughts, trying to get them to organize themselves. There was no mistaking that he was clearly shaken up. He couldn't figure out what to say, couldn't prioritize, so he just shut his mouth and tried to calm his racing mind. They sat there, in companionable silence for what felt like hours, but was probably only ten minutes or so, until Beau finally broke the quiet.

He took a deep breath and composed himself. "I meant what I said. What you did—standing up for me—I appreciate it. I'm sorry you got dragged into this, though."

"It wasn't a problem, Beau," Edward looked up at him from between his eyelashes. His lips turned up slightly at the edges. He tentatively placed his hand on top of Beau's smaller one. "It was my pleasure." His eyes were golden in the soft glow of the dusty light bulb. Beau felt himself draw in a breath, ragged as if he'd just surfaced from under water.

Beau swallowed hard and looked away. They were enveloped by the silence once more, but this time, the hush was accompanied with something much deeper, an almost tangible tension.

"We'll get out of here eventually," Beau murmured, more to himself than anything. "Danny'll be doing his rounds soon." Danny was the sweet old janitor who always smiled gummily at Beau when he walked through the halls.

"There's somebody outside the door," Edward told him, barely more than a murmur.

Beau stiffened. "What—"

Edward shook his head. "One of those idiots stayed behind. He's guarding the door."

Beau growled. "I am _not_ spending the night stuck in a closet." He made to stand, but Edward grabbed his hip before he could.

"There's no point," he explained as Beau flailed in outrage. "The only thing we can do is sit and wait. We don't need you getting hurt anymore, okay?"

Beau opened his mouth to protest but that moment his cheek and his busted lip decided to throb in union, so he only winced and nodded, settling back down.

The hand on his hip moved up to gently touch his bruised jaw-line, wonderfully cool against his aching skin and Beau sighed inaudibly.

"They hurt you," Edward said and when Beau looked at him, his eyes were narrow with fury, swirling almost black.

Beau smiled weakly. "Assholes happen," he joked.

"You don't know what they were thinking."

His hand cupped Beau's face tangibly, his thick thumb slowly caressing his jaw.

"Well, they obviously weren't planning a housewarming party!" Beau laughed, near hysterical.

Edward looked at him seriously. "They wanted to _break_ you."

Beau stopped smiling. "You don't know that." His hands tentatively found Edward's shoulders in the dark, and when there was no protest, his fingers grasped tightly. "You can't know that." But Miller's face just kept coming back to him in the dark, his mean smile, his cool, sweet voice and the glinting way he looked at Beau, like he was something to eat.

He shivered.

"I won't let him hurt you," Edward vowed and Beau bowed his head, speechless. "I won't."

Beau said nothing.

And that was when three things happened in quick succession.

A soft voice came from the other side of the door.

A loud argument started that Beau couldn't quite hear, but that ended with an even louder "BAM!"

The door opened.

"Jacob!"

...

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM, YOU PIECE OF—"

In a blur, Beau was ripped out of Edward's arms and pulled into Jacob's, his friend examining him quickly, hands readjusting his clothing and a growl emanating from him when he saw the bruises.

"You—You..." Jacob's face was red with anger, unable to form words that could articulate the complete and utter rage he was feeling.

Immediately, Beau got between them before anyone started throwing punches, specifically Jacob.

"Hey, hey," Beau placated, hands in the air. "Let's not jump to conclusions here, okay? He didn't do anything to me, Jake. Calm down."

Jacob was still fuming, not listening to a word he was saying. It only got worse when he saw the bruises more clearly. Beau winced as his face was manhandled into a better position for his friend to examine.

"Did he touch you?" Jacob demanded as he flailed around, eyes going from Beau's purpling cheek to his busted lip to Edward and back.

"No, it was the asshole who put us in there in the first place," Beau mumbled, not appreciating Jacob, Mother-Hen Edition, in the slightest.

Jacob didn't seem convinced, still glaring at Edward who'd slowly risen to his feet during the argument.

"Why're you even here?" Beau asked, not unkindly. "Not that I don't appreciate the help and everything, but I thought you were up at the Res?"

"I wasn't going to let you walk home in this weather, not with your truck in the shop," the other boy said, swiveling his attention back to Beau.

Beau blinked. "Oh."

"Yes, 'oh,'" Jacob blustered. "I was waiting in the parking lot, you know, for you. And you were taking a long time, so I decided to go and tell you to hurry up. I wandered into this place and there was this lump of meat—" here he gestured vaguely indicating height and width, "hovering around, in the hallways, and he came up to me to tell me to get the hell out—so I knew something was up. So I look around him, and see that somebody'd spraypainted a slur on a closet door."

Beau whipped his head around—the door was wide open, so they couldn't see the back at first, but then Edward stepped forwards and closed it shut and—

_Oh._

"Well," he said. "That's very creative." His voice was sour. The letters were barely legible, blocky things that nearly faded into each other, the paint still wet and glinting on the wood. But the message was pretty clear.

Edward's lip curled into a vicious snarl.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Jacob continued. "So I kicked the crap out of the guy until he ran, tail between his legs." He frowned heavily. "And then I opened the door and find my princess with this freaking creep, all beaten up. What was I supposed to think?"

"I'm not your princess!" Beau exclaimed, exasperated. He shook his head, just too tired to think. "He didn't hurt me, Jacob. If anything, he stopped me from hurting myself. I don't do well in small spaces." He wanted to storm off, yelling about not being a damsel in distress, but he was too drained, physically and emotionally to even think about it. "How did you even beat him up, you're like a foot shorter."

"I went for his balls." Jacob was completely unrepentant. "We have to... to report this, Beau, what if those fuckers try hurting you again—"

"Hey!" called a new voice. Beau and the others turned. It was a teacher. Of course it was a teacher. "What's going on here?"

...

He slumped over in his seat in the principal's office, head in his hands, elbows on his knees.

In the past hour, he'd had to explain everything that had happened at least two times to seven separate people. It was exhausting. And the worst part was that even _still_ some of them didn't believe him.

He could hear them behind the door, arguing over him.

His dad had been called to the school the moment he'd stepped past the threshold, and if Beau thought Jacob had been bad about the bruises, he had another thing coming. Charlie was screaming his head off already, probably at the poor red-head secretary.

Beau couldn't bring himself to feel bad for them, unfortunately, not when he'd just been locked in a closet because of some homophobic jerkfaces.

It hadn't been the first time.

Well, it was the first time he'd been pushed and locked into a closet, he'll give them that. Points for originality.

Arizona wasn't the most accepting of places either. They'd had Millers just as bad, maybe even just as worse. And the teachers hadn't been the shiniest examples of tolerance either.

He looked up when the door creaked open. Dr. Franklin, the school principal, walked in alone, grey hair combed to perfection, snazzy suit cut in all the right places. Dr. Franklin was a gentleman, always polite and mild-mannered and very welcoming when Beau transferred to the school. But now he looked disheveled, forehead wrinkled with worry and he was fingering his tie, nervous.

He sat down gingerly at his desk, across from Beau.

"What's going on?" Beau asked.

Dr. Franklin hesitated. "Beau, you're not going to like what I have to say. Look, I believe you; so does your father. The chances you're lying are very slim. But the allegations you're making... they're very serious and these boys. They're all star pupils, they don't have a record. It would be much easier to prosecute them if they were caught in the act. But right now, it's your word, and Mr. Cullen's word against the claims of six other students."

Beau rubbed his eyes tiredly. "So you're saying there's no way they can be punished for they did? For what happened to Edward, to me?"

Dr. Franklin shook his head vigorously. "No, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. According to Jacob Black, he caught one Tim Crawley standing outside the closet. He admitted to punching Crawley in... er, a rather sensitive area, and if we can get Crawley to confess there is a chance that we can get them an appropriate punishment. There are also surveillance cameras all over this campus. With any luck, the one in that hallway will be working and we'll be able to get the film. That's solid evidence right there."

Beau laughed. "Yeah, sure," he said bitterly.

Dr. Franklin frowned. "What do you mean, Beau?"

"You said it yourself," Beau muttered. "These kids are star pupils. Do you think they'd be cocky enough to ignore the fact that a camera was filming them?" He answered his own question. "No, they'll have taken the film. Or destroyed the camera."

Dr. Franklin set his mouth in a firm line. "I hope for your sake, Beau, that isn't true. If it comes down to it, I can lobby the parents to search through their things, but I doubt many will oblige. And I can't get so many search warrants, especially for minors. I really do believe it's best if we keep the investigation as quiet as possible."

Beau didn't, but he was thinking about how that would be impossible. His bruises were really bad. They would last maybe two weeks. And when he came back to school, everyone would know something was up.

Dr. Franklin looked at Beau, very seriously. "Beau, you have to listen very carefully to what I'm going to say. This is very important, do you understand?"

Beau searched Dr. Franklin's face. His old watery blue eyes were sterner than he'd ever seen them. He nodded.

Dr. Franklin continued, "Think very, very carefully before you tell anyone about what happened to you today, especially your school friends. If we can prove what you claim, these boys are facing charges of assault, most likely in an adult court. I do not want rumors running around the school naming names or pointing fingers. If you accuse so-and-so of hurting you without proof, they can accuse you of slander and it might draw unwanted attention. These kinds of incidents are very rarely a onetime thing. I want you to stay from those boys and away from anyone associated with them. In any case, I think the most pertinent course of action is to say as little possible and only to those whom you trust."

Beau nodded. "I understand, sir." And he honestly did. It sucked, but he did.

"Now, are you okay?"

Beau nodded. "I've got a lot of bruises, Nurse Mallory and the paramedics said they're deep skin. And my right ankle is sprained, so I can't run for a couple weeks. They took pictures, for documentation. They don't think I have a concussion, but I have an egg on the back of my head."

Dr. Franklin, the picture of grandfatherly concern, "If it's all the same to you, I would feel much better if you went to the hospital."

Beau frowned, but didn't protest and wondered if he actually had a choice. Either way, his dad would probably insist on him seeing Dr. Cullen. So if it eased old Dr. Franklin's worries, well, then it killed two birds with one stone.

So he relented.

"Okay. But do I have to ride in the ambulance?"

...

Yes, he did and it was nauseating. At least they didn't put the sirens on. That would've been humiliating _and_ unnecessary. His dad rode with him in the ambulance and Edward followed behind in a police car, driven by his father's partner, while Jacob followed behind in his car.

It was nice hospital, all around and the doctor who took care of him was obviously Edward's father. Dr. Cullen was very handsome, very pale, like his children, with Rosalie's topaz eyes and Jasper's loosely waved blond hair. Beau wondered for a moment whether the rumor that Rosalie and Jasper were his niece and nephew had any truth to it. But, for the most part, the resemblance ended there. His smile was very bright, with a sharp, defined nose and slim lips and the same marble complexion as his children.

Beau marveled that the nurses here were able to work with such a specimen walking around.

Dr. Cullen was very kind as well, and thankfully, didn't ask Beau what had happened. "Hello, Beau, it's so great to finally meet you, although it's rather unfortunate we have to be introduced under these circumstances." The doctor shook Beau's hand quickly before reaching for his stethoscope. "Now let's check you over."

...

The hospital released Beau that afternoon, after prescribing him with some painkillers and anti-inflammatory medication for his bruises. It turned out that Beau's ankle was sprained, so they gave him a single crutch to use until it healed as well.

His father was quiet on the ride home, fists clenched around the wheel. When they pulled up outside the house, Charlie turned the key in the ignition, shutting it off, but didn't move to get out of the car, leaning back in his seat. He took in a deep breath, and turned to Beau. "I know you don't want me to—I know you're going to argue—but I'm going to have to tell your mother about this."

"No!" Beau was horrified. "She'll freak out, and then I might have to go home!"

That sounded harsher than it actually was.

It wasn't that Beau didn't want to see his mother, Rene-he loved her a lot and never resented her for any of the divorce crap. But she'd been taking care of him his entire life, always working, never stopping to take a look around, never resting. And now she was finally happy, with Phil.

"Dad, don't, she's busy. I don't want her to have to come up all the way to Forks because of me." He found himself pleading, twisting around in his seat to face his dad, better.

Charlie's face was very serious. "Beau, your health is her first priority, you should know that."

"I _do _know that," Beau sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. "But this really the first time we've been away from each other, and if I have to take her away from her new life with Phil because of a twisted ankle-"

Charlie blinked. "Beau, this isn't just about you getting hurt," he interrupted. "This is about—about some teenage punks beating you, shoving you into a closet and fucking getting away with it!" His voice grew progressively louder as he spoke, anger darkening his face. "And I won't have your mother not knowing about it, not when her baby's been hurt and bashed and—"

"Dad," Beau interrupted. And he reached over and slid his arms around his father's wide waist, because this wasn't about his mom, not really. This was about his dad not being able to scare the nightmares away, not being able to protect his boy from the monsters of the world, not anymore.

Beau didn't let go until his dad responded, hugging him back and he ignored it when the shoulder his head was lying on started shaking. Crying.

"I'm okay, Daddy," he said, sadly. "I'm okay."

Charlie mumbled words of reassurance from a swollen throat, pressing a whiskery kiss to the top of his son's forehead.

"Thank God Edward was there," Beau felt murmured into his curls after a moment of a good old fashioned Swan hug. "God knows what those boys would've done to you if he hadn't—if there wasn't—"

"Shh," Beau grumbled. "Don't think about it." He pulled away to look at him. "It could've been worse, but it wasn't."

Charlie said nothing.

Beau patted his shoulder softly, before smiling, bright despite everything that had happened. "How about we just go inside and have a pizza night, yeah? Watch some B-rated action movies, the ones with guns and explosions and a plot a ten year old could follow."

Charlie nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "Let's do that."

They got out of the car, leaning a little on each other as they went.

It would take a little bit more than a movie night to get over this, Beau knew, but as Charlie started waxing poetic about a pizza shop downtown, Beau knew they'd be okay.

...

His eyes dragged open.

He'd gone to bed rather early after having dinner with his dad in front of the television, body weighed down by the food baby he was slowly breaking down in his stomach, ankle only giving off weak little twinges once in a while. He'd been dead tired after the day he'd had. He'd drifted off into a pleasant food coma, the room strangely sweltering as he shed his clothes for a billowy sleep shirt, too lazy to cover his legs as he burrito'd himself in blankets.

But now, the room was cool, sweet, sweet air brushing through his sweaty bangs, and his eyes fluttered as they adjusted to the darkness.

He didn't know what made him move his leaden arm to flick on the light, but when he did, he found himself staring straight at Edward Cullen, his eyes black and inky, mouth open, expression _hungry._

Beau's lips parted in response, in surprise, and he only broke his gaze for a moment, groping around for his glasses, stupidly wondering whether his father knew Cullen was here, but when he looked back, glasses now on his face...

Edward was just gone.

Beau flailed wildly out of bed, arms windmilling as he flopped onto the floor with a squawk.

"Edward?" he said, stunned, to the lamp, which only stared back at him judgmentally. "What the..."

He propped himself up on unsteady feet, the painkillers helping his ankle as he hobbled over to the open window—which hadn't been open before, had it? He paused as nippy air washed over him, hair prickling on bare legs, long fingers pressed against the windowpane.

"It's the drugs," he told himself. "They make you go all loopy. I'm seeing things. Yeah. Okay."

He glanced in the mirror—his hair was a rat's nest and his glasses were all lopsided, but he didn't look drugged. He didn't feel drugged either.

Maybe it was a dream?

He shivered, fingers and collarbones strangely icy as he reached out and closed the window, heard it click in its groove firmly before double-locking it.

He should talk with his dad tomorrow—he needed an alarm on his window, probably.

He climbed back into bed, legs and arms feeling out of place and strangely long as he rearranged himself in the still warm sheets, face half-shmushed into his pillow. He laid there, in his little nest of blankets, eyes open and thinking, for the rest of the night.

...


	5. Come Fly Away With Me

They were all staring.

Beau could feel it.

Whispers behind their hands, flickering eyes over the livid bruises on his face and neck to his hands, where his fingertips were swollen and purple from trying to shred the closet door, to the very conspicuous crutch he was leaning him before going to his ankle, which was lumpy and swollen in the double layers of socks he'd stuffed it into that morning.

It had been two days since the incident. It was his first day back and already two minutes in Beau felt like melting quietly into nonexistence. The local news outlets hadn't used his name in reference to the incident, but it was pretty evident to everyone in Forks to who the "victimized gay teen" was.

He fumbled at his locker, fingers stubbornly clumsy and altogether useless, shoulders stiff as he heard Lauren, a girl from his trig class, laughing loudly in the corner.

"The fag's a cripple now..." she giggled crudely and Beau thought violent, stabby thoughts in her general direction.

He sighed, trying to open his locker and failing three times before a shadow, strangely Cullen shaped, draped itself across his personal space and Lauren and her girlfriends and everyone in the hallway fell silent.

He looked up.

Sure enough.

"Hi, Edward," he mumbled, lowering his head so his bangs bounced into his eyes.

"Hi." Edward waved awkwardly, even though they were standing a foot apart. "Um. Do you need help?"

Beau blinked before he realized he was talking about his locker. "Oh." He moved back obligingly and watched as Edward deftly twisted the lock and clicked it open. "Thanks," he said before wondering aloud, "How did you know my combination?"

Edward shrugged. "You've been trying for a while. I just noticed the numbers."

"Well, you're observant," Beau said dryly as he wriggled his backpack off of his arm and began putting away his books for classes, slower than he usually went.

Edward paused, head tilted. "Which classes?" he asked.

"Oh. Trig and AP U.S. History first, I guess," Beau answered, blinking in surprise as the other boy picked out his binders and textbooks from the top shelf. He shoved in the rest of Beau's things with quiet efficiency and looked to Beau for his assent before shutting the door.

They started walking down the hallway towards math. Beau thought that was pretty nice of Edward, because they weren't in the same class. But every time they rounded the corner, heads turned and conversation stopped, eyes staring.

"Do they all know what happened?" Beau side-glanced at Edward.

Edward shrugged. "I don't believe so—it's mostly rumors, more than anything. I think they heard that you and I were involved in a fight of some kind with Miller." The side of his mouth quirked upwards. "It doesn't help that Miller and his cronies have all been temporarily suspended. Only In-School Suspension, because there isn't enough evidence, but since Crawley confessed, there isn't much they can complain about."

"Well thank god for that, I'd hate for Miller to feel unjustly treated." Beau snarked, but he was secretly relieved that he wouldn't have to face anyone who stuffed him into a closet, at least today.

Edward hummed his agreement. Beau glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and then took a double take. There was a soft, slight up-turn to Edward's lips, and he looked very relaxed, moreso than Beau had seen him before. He looked _content_. The longer Beau and Edward walked on, the more awestruck Beau became. Edward had never seemed so simply _content _before.

He narrowed his eyes at Edward, and stopped dead in his tracks, so that Edward turned to look at him, a question in his eyes.

"Okay, mister, spit it out, what's put you in such a great mood?" Beau waved his crutch at him accusingly. "Did you put a stinkbomb in my locker or a piñata? I need to know now, I'm allergic to papier mache."

Beau tried to put his most serious face on, but couldn't help letting one side of his mouth quirk.

Edward's eyes widened with surprise before he broke out in a surprisingly mischievous grin. "No, I didn't put a stinkbomb or a piñata in your locker, but thanks for the idea. If you must know, I'm happy because I finally have an excuse to carry your books for you."

That wasn't the answer Beau was expecting. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Two things. Number one, mostly it's because your clumsiness makes it painful for me to watch you dropping your poor books around every corner."

Beau made a face. They were in front of Beau's math class now, and Beau wanted to finish their conversation, but just then the early warning bell rang and Beau knew that Edward's first class was across the campus in a different building. Edward handed over Beau's books with what looked like reluctance when Beau reached out a hand for them.

"I'll see you around then, Beau." Edward nodded and then moved to leave.

"Whoa, wait!" Beau grabbed onto Edward's arm to stop him from going and Edward whipped back around at such a speed that Beau jumped as flecked amber eyes locked onto his. They were really close, really bright, faceted like a jewel and blinding him with how _intense _they seemed.

"Yes, Beau?"

"Uh—um, I was going to ask—What's number two?" Beau's tongue fumbled.

Edward shifted his weight back, sheepish, as his eyes flicked away from Beau's. Beau's hand fell away from Edward's arm and he suddenly loathed the space between them.

Edward scratched at his neck and smiled embarrassedly at anything but Beau, before clearing his throat. "Never mind, it was silly..."

"Tell me." Beau cocked his head to the side.

Edward finally looked up at him and fluttered his eyes bashfully. "Number two, is... well, because I wanted to spend time with you Beau. That is, if that's all right with you?"

Beau blinked, surprised. Edward, as handsome and as intelligent as he was, sometimes came off as cold. Aloof. Beau hadn't thought Edward did things like spend time with people other than his family.

"Beau?"

Right. He hadn't told Prince Charming if he wanted to dance yet.

"Uh..." He shifted, blinking. "I guess, I mean, sure. Why not?" He laughed at himself, shaking his head.

This was not going to help his crush at all, was it?

Edward smiled. He really smiled. Teeth and everything. It would be almost terrifying if it wasn't also painfully adorable and heart wrenching. Beau couldn't help but smile back, suddenly shy.

"Wait for me after class?" Edward's voice tilted up hopefully at the end.

"Sure. Fine. Wonderfully fine," Beau grinned.

Edward backed away, shouldering his own backpack.

"See you later then, Beau."

It turned out that Beau didn't have to wait for Edward after class after all.

Because Edward was already lurking very creepily behind the open door.

After every single one of Beau's classes, always with that infuriating smirk on his pretty boy mouth, ready to swoop in like an over-rated film hero and carry Beau's books.

In every school Beau had ever gone to, he'd always been that person who was the last one out of the classroom. He'd been jealous of those super-humans who showed up first to every period, rain or shine, snow or traffic-clogged hallways. But he had to admit, Edward's punctuality, scary as it might be, was useful. Now that Beau didn't have a ridiculous amount of books bogging him down in the corridors, he didn't have to worry about taking anyone's eye out with a flailing elbow or flying writing utensil. And he didn't have to think about being late, now that he had a guide well versed in navigating the rocky seas of Forks High School.

He almost didn't notice the bug-eyed stares they got wherever they went on campus, short shrimpy Beau a sharp contrast to topaz-eyed, tall, built Edward. He was too busy talking and running his mouth about movies and comic books and novels to Edward, who apparently was a bibliophile with an in-depth knowledge of classic literature, but a deep-seated lack of interest in anything created in the early to current 21st century, Jesus Christ.

And pop-culture? Forget about it.

Harry Potter? Pfftt.

Ariana Grande? "A type of latte?"

Iron Man? Fssshhh.

Lady Gaga? "Is that a disease?"

Game of Thrones? No.

Benedict Cumberbatch?

"Cumber-what?" Edward asked incredulously.

Beau's only response was an inconsolable moan.

"_Ohmygod,_ we are marathoning Netflix," Beau said firmly, latching onto Edward's arm as though he was a man on his deathbed and Beau was his only hope of salvation. "Pizza and Netflix, okay? Okay." He nodded to himself. "It's not too late, Beau, his soul can still be saved."

Beau didn't even bother translating Edward's complicated eyebrow dance. "Somehow, I doubt that," Edward said dryly.

...

It was nice while it lasted.

Everything came tumbling down during lunch.

_Of freaking course._

Jessica ambushed him just as he had sucked a mouthful of Mordor-hot cocoa onto his tongue.

"So are you and Edward dating?"

After he'd finished swallowing _the burning fires of hell,_ he spluttered, "_What."_ His eyes were still streaming, because _owowowow._ His tongue tingled, the tip burnt and searing.

Before Jessica got a chance to reply, Edward thunked his metal tray down on the table next to Beau. _This is a surprise,_ Beau blinked at Jessica. According to Forks High lore, the Cullens never sat with anyone outside of their familial unit. This was an anomaly.

Jessica voiced her concern back to him in a series of blinks.

"What's going on?" Edward ventured.

"What?" Beau very carefully set his Styrofoam cup down, surface still steaming. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." He narrowed a look at the other boy. "We certainly weren't discussing the very weird idea that you and me were anything other than platonic friends, were we, Jessica?"

Jess, for once, stayed silent on the issue.

Edward smirked. "I was wondering when that would start." His self-satisfied smile widened a little bit when he saw Beau's unimpressed expression. "How are you, Beau, my love—?"

Beau very calmly raised his boiling drink and aimed.

Edward cut himself off. "Okay, okay." The Cullen sat back before nudging his untouched food towards Beau. "You eat it, I'm not very hungry. I had a pretty big breakfast—besides, I dread to think about what could happen if you got on the lunch line with those crutches."

Said crutches leaned innocently against Beau's chair, just waiting to poke someone's eye out.

He glanced at the proffered tray, looking over the fluffy biscuit and roasted chicken, a little bowl of Jell-O sitting out next to his milk carton. He side-eyed Edward.

He didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon.

Beau wondered whether he was supposed to be concerned or not. Edward normally wasn't this outspoken at all. Beau had gotten used to the quiet, shy-guy Edward. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on with this new and improved, teasing, twinkle-in-his-eye Edward.

He glanced at the Cullen table. Judging by the way Rosalie was trying to send him to the lower circle of hell with the force of her will alone, he guessed that the concern was warranted.

"Something wrong?" Edward probed, expression pointed.

"No," Beau squeaked, having been caught looking.

"Everything's fine," Jessica echoed robotically.

"What's going on?" Eric's head of floppy hair appeared along with Tyler's cornrows and Mike's shaggy dog locks. "Why is Cullen sitting with us?"

"Wait," frowned Tyler, forehead wrinkling. "Are you two actually dating?"

"Yes, we're desperately in love," Cullen deadpanned.

Mike roared with laughter as Beau covered his face, unwilling to watch this train wreck.

The laughter died down. "Wait—is he joking?"

"I dunno, man, he seems pretty serious." Tyler was a terror.

Beau refused to react in any other way other than go burning red as he felt Edward drape a cool arm over his shoulders. "I thought everybody knew," the asshole was gasping, like an offended dame from those starlet films from the 1940s. "Darling, did you not tell them? Are you ashamed of me?"

"Come off it, you conceited, snotty, son of a—" Beau batted his arm away, frowning as the rest of his so-called 'friends' cracked up. Except Jessica. She was still frowning, brow lined and unhappy.

At least Beau had Jessica, still.

Tyler sat down across from him, the traitor, still grinning, teeth bright white. His mom had packed him a lunch and as he unpacked his sandwich and soda he asked "So, what the hell happened, man?" He glanced at Beau's crutches and the heavy bruise on his left cheek.

Beau waved the inquiry away. "Some assholes jumped me, it doesn't matter."

Tyler frowned. "Dude, they beat you pretty bad. They could, like, be charged with assault or excessive battery."

"It's not that bad." Beau shook his head.

"And you only get charged with excessive battery if you nearly kill someone," Angela piped up helpfully.

Jessica's jaw tightened. "Maybe we should talk about something else." It wasn't a question.

Tyler ignored her. "Who did it?" he asked, munching on a bag of chips. "I mean, it's kinda obvious, but still, I think we'd all like to hear it come from you."

Eric and Angela nodded fervently, but Jessica was just looking at her salad like it'd stabbed her mother.

Edward's expression darkened as she bit viciously into a carrot.

Mike frowned. "Dude, you're my friend. If someone threatened you, I wanna know who they are."

"It was Miller, okay?" Beau huffed. "Miller and a couple of his friends from the football team, I dunno their names, and I don't want to know, alright? I just want this whole mess to blow over. Just because some homophobic bastards—"

There was the sharp clank of Jessica slamming her fork onto the table and Angela jumped.

Jess blinked, looking up, eyes shooting from one face to another, landing on Beau, who was frowning, confused, and she didn't say anything, just shook her head quickly and stood up.

"I—" She stopped and turned on her heel, almost running, before slamming open the cafeteria doors and storming out, not mad, but she didn't look particularly happy either.

Edward's upper lip lifted in a snarl.

"What happened?" asked Mike, bewildered, and he stood up.

Tyler grabbed his arm. "Dude, no," he said, pulling Mike back down onto his seat. He pursed his lips and frowned at Beau apologetically. "Adam's been her friend since first grade. I think it just threw her off, you talking about him that way. Shit, I know it's not my place, I'm sorry, man."

"Adam?" Beau frowned, connecting the dots. "Miller?"

"Yeah." Tyler scowled at the doors. "Look, I'm not saying she's gonna drop you or anything, but she's definitely not sunshine and rainbows at the moment. Especially when you just called Miller a homophobic bastard. Which I'm not saying he isn't. Jess just has issues, okay? She'll come around."

Edward said nothing, but the expression on his face was plain out scornful.

"Wait for her to cool down," Angela added. "I'm sure she'll apologize tomorrow."

...

Driving with a sprained ankle—not only tricky, but also possibly lethal.

Beau grimly hobbled with all the countenance of a death row inmate over to Jacob's bulky dark van with beat up fenders and huge tires, already weighed down with books and his bag. The other kids who were leaving obviously didn't have any reservations about staring.

Jacob getting out of the van didn't help much either.

He vaulted nimbly onto the icy pavement, grabbing Beau's books with a cheery "Hey, Princess," before opening up the passenger door to further Beau's discomfort.

Beau glanced back at the school. Edward's silvery Volvo had just pulled out of its parking lot, his brother's fire-hydrant red Ferrari not far behind. But they didn't leave before Beau glimpsed Rosalie Hale's scowling face through the slightly tinted windows, her lipsticked mouth tilted downward in fury.

Beau turned back to Jacob, who cheerfully helped him into the passenger seat.

"Things'll be better tomorrow," Jacob said as he started up the van, patting his big paw comfortingly on Beau's comparably skinny knee. "You'll see."

...

Jacob lied.

The temperature had jumped overnight, suddenly-warm air hovering and buzzing with the thick, humid clouds shrouding the sky as always.

It was only upon approaching the school in Jacob's truck, Beau immediately realized that something was up when he saw the cop car sitting inconspicuously in front of the main office. His first thought was that his father had finally cracked and come to pick him up and put him on the first flight to Jackson (it wouldn't be surprising considering just how well his mom had taken the news. She had wanted him home immediately, and it was only because Beau insisted that despite the incident he was quite happy in Forks that she had allowed him to stay).

Walking towards the main building, Beau realized that it wasn't a car from his father's station, no, this was a state vehicle and Beau stiffened irrationally, fingers tightening around his crutch.

The man in front of the car was tall, real tall, with big shoulders and dark eyes and Beau averted his gaze to the building, bowing his head so he wouldn't have to make eye contact.

He crossed into the lobby, where he was stopped by the morning security guard, Andy.

"Dr. Franklin wants to see you, Beau," she said, sympathetically, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her uniform.

Beau blinked, glancing over his shoulder out the window. The police car was still there, and so was the man. "Okay." He readjusted his bag before beginning to hobble down the hallway, grip on his crutch tightening. Dr. Franklin's office wasn't all that far from his locker, so if it was just a quick checkup on the poor victimized student, then he could still be early for Trig.

Franklin's harried secretary quickly gestured him to the office, tapping nosily on her keyboard, phone hooked underneath her chin. Beau nodded at her before going into the little hallway that separated the main office to Dr. Franklin's private room.

He rapped quickly on the door, blinking when on the second knock the door was opened by an older man, his hair salt-and-pepper, dark beard flecked with silver. He was tall, and thick with muscle and Beau found himself being intimidated already with the way the officer's eyes slid over him—and it was an officer, with the way he held himself, dress shirt pressed and neat, shoes polished to a point, gun holster hidden underneath his jacket, but the lump gave him away.

"Um, hey? I'm here to see Doc Franklin, I think it's important—"

"Are you Beauregard Swan?" the man interrupted, voice deep and rumbly. He was handsome in a grizzled way, eyes ice-blue and slipping down Beau's vivid bruises and scratches until they came to his crutch and sprained foot.

"Er, yeah, call me Beau. What's going on?" He craned his neck around the officer, getting a glimpse of soft-middled Franklin sitting meekly at his desk, capable shoulders hunched.

"Sit down, Beau, don't worry," Franklin said, dabbing at his forehead nervously. "We have some good news for you. Oh, this is Detective Bradstreet. Detective, this is Beau, as you already know."

Beau sat, sliding his crutch underneath the mostly uncomfortable seat, and placing his bag on his lap. "What's this about?" He couldn't stop himself from glancing at the detective, confused.

"We found the tape," Bradstreet said bluntly and Franklin glared at him, disgruntled.

"The—the tape?" Oh, shit. So that meant that... Okay. So... "Where did you find it?"

"No matter what Adam Miller wanted you to believe, he's no criminal mastermind." Bradstreet's voice was quite dry. "One of his teammates had it shoved in the back of his locker, covered by a pile of Chemistry homework."

Beau blinked. "Wow." He pushed up his glasses, taking a breath, thinking. "So this means you have probable cause to... to punish them, right? So they won't do it to anyone else?"

Bradstreet cast him a discreet look. "It's a pretty straight forward assault case. You'd win in about twenty minutes if you were willing to sue in a civil court. You could also go through the D.A. office if you wanted, put them in juvy for a few weeks."

Beau blinked—he... he hadn't thought about it in that way. Suing them. Putting those boys in jail. Did he want that?

What did he want to do about this?

Bradstreet sighed, probably seeing the conflict written all over Beau's face. "Look, kid, there are a lot of ways you could go about this. Why don't you just go to class for now, and then when you get home, talk with your dad about what you think is the best course of action. You could always just let the school handle it if you just wanna wash your hands clean of the whole thing." He nodded at both Beau and Franklin. "I'll be in touch. If you need me, here's my number." He handed Beau a card, a little square of crisp white paper with a neatly printed phone number and work address. "Don't hesitate to call."

He left without another word, but he did glance back, just once, to nod at Beau sympathetically.

Beau gathered his things in a bit of a daze, muttering a half-hearted goodbye to the principal before walking out of the main office and into the locker halls, fingers grasping tightly at his crutch like a child would a safety blanket.

The thing was: Beau didn't particularly hate Miller or Crawley or the Hulk or any of the assholes who decided they should stuff a gay boy in a locker. He was disgusted by them and the fact that they actually managed to touch him grossed him out beyond all mention. But he wasn't angry at them. He just wanted them to leave him alone.

Say he decided he wanted to sue. Say he decided he wanted the D.A. to put them in juvenile hall. What would that solve? They'd just get madder, stewing in their self-righteous piss-and-shit and eventually, once they got out of kiddie jail or their parents stopped watching their every move, they'd decide the little queer was asking for another fight, another beating. Then, they'd come after him, hurt him worse, and the whole shitty situation would just start all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat, only diarrhea style.

They were the worst kind of teenagers, the angry, messed up kind, and it wasn't even _all_ of them, not really, it was just Miller. Miller, who'd probably been spoon-fed hatred and poison since the day he was born—then again, Beau didn't really know Miller. He didn't _want_ to know Miller.

He just wanted them to stop. To stop harassing him, to stop stupidly toddling after some asshole who had a God complex the size of Mississippi.

He was in front of his locker, not quite sure how he got there; he must've just wandered off on autopilot, he was so stuck in his thoughts. He sighed, fingers still just a bit too swollen to really utilize them the way he needed to in order to flip the lock open, so he just banged his forehead against the locker in silent suffering.

He didn't want to go to Trig, he had too many whirling thoughts, mudding up his brain, and he knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate, even if he wanted to.

And he definitely didn't want to.

So when Edward tapped him on the shoulder, asking him whether or not he needed help opening his locker, Beau turned, not without effort and the help of his crutch, looked up and said "No, actually. Do you have a test or a project or anything important today?"

Edward frowned, tilting his head. "Uh, no, why?"

Beau scrunched up his nose, thinking. "You wanna skip class with me, today?"

...

Edward drove like he was trying to kill someone; or himself. His foot was pressed hard against the pedal, his posture relaxed, one hand wresting leisurely on the wheel, the other hanging out the open window, the rush of partially warm air blasting hard through Beau's curls and Edward's otherwise perfect locks.

Beau loved it. The rush of hard wind in his lungs, the pressure of it making his eyes stream, the weird alternative music Edward's stereos were blaring, the way his laughter got lost at the speed they were going, trailing behind them like cookie crumbs, the amusement in Edward's golden eyes.

Beau threw his arms behind his head, tilting his neck so he could close his eyes and pretend he was flying. They sped on empty stretches of road, the Volvo's engine barely more than a soft hum underneath them and it felt like they were gliding.

"How did you guys afford something like this?" he yelled over the music. "This is crazy!"

Edward laughed. "Our father likes spoiling us—his wife, Esme's, worse! She bought Rosalie a Tesla!"

"You're kidding," Beau blurted. Even Beau, hopeless case that he was, knew how exorbitantly expensive those things were. They could run up to 200k, easily. "Your dad's nice! He's the one who bandaged my foot!" He kicked up his leg for emphasis and Edward shot him a look.

"Take it easy," Edward said, slowing down, just a smidge, for a left-hand turn. "I don't want to reintroduce you two anytime soon."

Beau snorted, taking it as a joke. He glanced out the window, seeing the greenery fly by. But then he saw it, in the up-coming bright yard of land, dotted with stones and thick dirt paths, surrounded by polished wrought iron gates. A chill spilled down the knobs of his spine, spreading to his ribs.

"Wait, can we stop here?" He threw out his arm, fingers grasping Edward's shoulder without conscious thought. He didn't catch Edward's inquiring look. "My grandpa's buried here. I want... I wanna pay my respects, if that's okay?" His voice went up in pitch at the end, making the statement a question, and his gaze swiveled, catching Edward's. "Please?"

Edward silently pulled over, expertly going from 70 miles per hour to 10 in record time. Beau didn't hesitate to pop the door open, but Edward was fast, already outside and handing Beau his crutch with a gentlemanly smile gone suddenly strained with a sudden up-tick of the wind. Beau ignored it. Edward had weird mood swings, sometimes.

As far as cemeteries went, this one was rather pleasant. Carefully tended patches of flowers outside of the gates were beginning to blossom. Crocuses peaked out tentatively from patches of melting snow, drops of vivid purple bright among dirty snow and pristine white petals. The paths, from what Beau could see, were all neat, weeds kept at bay nicely, some cobbled stone, others just ways made from carefully padded gravel.

Every gravestone was unique—some were sandstone, some glittering obsidian, others just neat concrete gray. It was nice, to see so many people honored that way. Beau had once been to a military funeral, in a veterans' graveyard. All of the rows and rows of identical gravestones had unsettled him. He got the idea—they were all equal in death, they had all served their country. But somehow, this little mismatched cemetery was more welcoming, was more human in its imperfections.

There was a cute little flower stand a few feet to the right of the entrance, bright sunflowers and pretty tulips carefully crafted into bouquets for the deceased. They were tended to by a young woman in a blue pea-coat, who smiled at them genially as they approached.

"Good morning," she chirruped. "Getting warmer, isn't it?"

Beau nodded and exchanged greetings before asking after the price of a daisy—he didn't have enough money for a bouquet.

Edward bent his head, asking quietly as he gestured, "What about that one?" It was a nice bunch, thick white carnations and some dark orange tulips, but Beau just wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

"Grandpa wasn't exactly a fan of flowers," Beau explained as he handed over some quarters for the flower. "He'll be rolling in the grave as it is, let's not make it worse. He did have a weakness for daisies, though, mostly because that was his nickname for my grandma."

Edward smiled quietly as they walked into the charming little cemetery, side by side, and Beau caught it in his periphery vision, fleeting but still precious. Beau found that the softest, quietest smiles were the most valuable, were the things you could carry with you on your shoulder without even noticing.

"What was your grandma's name?" Edward asked as Beau snooped around the gravestones, searching for his grandpa.

"Hmmm. Oh, she's still alive, don't worry. Her name's Alaqua." He stopped at a pretty little stone, dark, carved with _Peter Swan, loving father, husband and grandfather_ in neat, slanted script_._ "This is him." There was a short pause. "Grandpa, this is Edward. Edward, this is my Grandpa. You can call him Mr. Swan." Beau was smiling, before bending down to place the little daisy on the wet patch of grass before the tombstone.

"Hello," said Edward, just as awkwardly as when he met Beau for the first time. "Mr. Swan," he tacked on belatedly, wincing.

Beau couldn't help but smile before poking him in the arm. "Very smooth, Ed, very smooth."

Edward rolled his eyes, but they twinkled as they rolled, so Beau gave himself a pat on the back.

"Alaqua," Edward sounded out slowly, like he was testing a new language. "Is that... Is that...?"

"Quileute, yeah." Beau placed his hand fondly on his grandfather's stone. "I know, I don't look very Quileute, right? It's just my grandma who's fully blooded; I'm just a quarter through her. My dad moved off the Rez when I was nine. To be far, he doesn't look Quileute either, but he looks exactly like my grandpa did when he was younger." He made a face. "Grandma says I look like her sister, only whiter and maler. She can be mean sometimes."

Edward raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'paler and maler'?"

"You know, I think I liked you better when you didn't have a sense of humor," Beau said meanly.

Edward just smiled mischievously, watching fondly as Beau plopped down onto the admittedly wet ground, nestling up against his grandpa's headstone.

"She's a good grandma, though." He looked quietly at his hands, fingers laced together in his lap. "Makes the best lemonade, even if it's the middle of winter. They call her Mama Swan or Grandma Swan, if they're my age. Some of the kids..." He laughed, pushing up his glasses. "They think she's a witch, 'cause she's the oldest woman on the Rez."

"Is she?" The older teen was looking at Beau quietly, his leather-gloved hands clenched again. "A witch, that is?"

"Hmm? 'Course not. She's good with medicinal herbs and sick-soups and stuff like that, but it's all just traditional." Beau blew a gust of wind at a stray curl in his eyes. "The pregnant girls like going to her for vitamins and good luck charms, sometimes. She's more a figurehead than anything."

"She sounds like a remarkable woman." Ed shifted from foot to foot, considering before he reached out a hand. "C'mon, Beau, you're gonna ruin your pants if you keep that up. There's a perfectly good bench right over there." He pointed across the road they were up against, diagonal to the grave Beau was sitting on—it was a nicely carved thing, made of marble or something else white and smooth, nestled underneath a dark-bark tree with long branches and budding leaves.

Beau took Ed's hand and allowed him to pull him to his full five feet, four inches before they moved over to the little alcove, hidden away from the rest of the world. It was just so quiet here. He strained his ears—not even a birdsong on the wind. Just the crunch of their footsteps on scattered gravel and the occasional snap of a tree branch underfoot. They could've been the last people on Earth, if not for the flower vendor three paths down.

They sat heavily, leaning on each other because the bench didn't have a back. Ed's shoulder wasn't exactly warm, but it was firm and Beau couldn't help but rest his head on it, suddenly tired.

"If you were gay," he suddenly started, "and a gang of boys had hurt you and humiliated you and put you in a closet because they thought you were lesser and a freak and just undeserving of _being yourself,_ and you could put them in jail, or sue them for cash, what would you do?" He felt Edward's heavy sigh more than he heard it.

"I..." Edward stopped. An arm wrapped itself comfortingly around Beau's shoulder, almost tentative, but Beau didn't knock it off and so it stayed. Beau waited. "It depends on... There's no good answer for that question, Beau, but it depends on whether or not you think they deserve going to jail or being sued, or whatever. Do you... do you think you can stand in front of judge for maybe three hours a day for a week and say in front of a judge and a jury what they did to you, over and over again? Do you think you could handle having another lawyer belittle you and try and discredit you and insult you and imply things about you that will make you scream inside? Do you think it's worth it?"

Beau was silent.

Edward sighed. "Whatever you want to do, you know your dad will support you wholeheartedly. He loves you, and wants to protect you more than anything and he'll gladly go after those... those..." Edward seemed too angry to find a right word.

"A-holes?" Beau offered.

"Yeah," Ed deflated. "He would gladly go after them in court, you know that. It depends on you."

Beau said quietly, "I just don't want them to do it again."

Edward's lip lifted in a silent snarl that was no less intimidating. "I won't let them, Beau. Do you understand that? I will _never_ let them touch you again." His voice wasn't gravelly or rough or anything remotely animalistic, but somehow those words just sounded so guttural, coming from clean-cut, polite, shy Edward.

Beau didn't doubt Edward's seriousness on the matter, but even he knew that Edward wouldn't be able to protect him. Look at what happened when he'd tried the last time.

"Edward," he said softly, "You're not a superhero. You can't just banish bullies with a thought or throw bad guys ten feet into the air. As much as I appreciate it, you shouldn't put yourself out there for me like that. Your sister already hates me—I don't want her to kill me because I got her brother... I got her brother..."

He couldn't finish the sentence, sniffing quietly, eyes pricking and watering almost immediately. It wasn't that he was particularly upset or anything, it was just that the last few weeks had been so turbulent that there had been times he'd nearly had panic attacks thinking about what had almost happened to him and Edward at the hands of _teenagers. _

Edward gently rubbed his side consolingly, shushing him until the little episode had passed.

"Sorry," Beau muttered.

"I get it, Beau, you're dealing with situations you shouldn't have to." Edward manhandled him into standing, already striding down the path. "Let's just go and do something else, something fun. Something... to get your mind off things."

Beau blinked, his bangs flopping into his eyes as he tilted his head. "Alright."

...


End file.
